Hellmouth
by aforgottenwish
Summary: Sequel to Patchwork. Buffy.Smallville crossover2. Lex Luthor has found his newest experiment, Buffy undercovers a dangerous plot and Willow is driven to extreme measures by the illness of a friend.
1. Chapter 1

_Smallville_ and all of its related elements are copyright © 2001 - 2007 Tollin-Robbins Productions, WB Television and DC Comics. Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

_Buffy the vampire slayer _and all of its related elements belong to Fox, the WB and Joss Whedon.

Chapter One 

The music pounded deep into Buffy's chest, obliterating any sense of self she might have had left. Suddenly, she was a part of a throbbing crowd; strong hands wrapped around her waist pulled her closer, and she opened her eyes, letting the darkly contrasting colours of the club wash over her. She looked up into the large, heavily lined eyes of her dance partner, and was comforted by the girl's lipstick smile.

"Do you feel better?" those lips said into her ear.

Buffy couldn't help but smile. "The club scene isn't really me," she protested, "but it takes me away from… everything."

Closing her eyes, Buffy let Faith's hands guide her hips to the beat of the music. Her and Faith had enjoyed a connection that Buffy could never remember having with any of her other friends—they were two of a kind; they had been the Slayers against the world.

Despite Faith's stray from the side of the light, her transgressions against Angel, and her part in the mutiny during the battle against the first… they fit well together.

Throwing away her inhibitions like this, dancing like the world might not be ending—it was exciting; new. It wasn't perfect; it wasn't beautiful, but it was primal.

"Faith," she called out. She stilled Faith's hips and managed to catch her eye. "I thought we came here to hunt."

"Nuh huh, Buffy," Faith replied, wagging her finger and winking. "I said that we were going to blow off some steam. You've been killing vampires by the boatload; a hunt isn't what you need."

She brought their bodies together again, and Buffy let herself be guided by the beat and she surrendered—she let her hands find their way into the air above her head, didn't shake off the boy dancing close behind her, and pretended that the music was all that existed in the world.

They continued to move together, part of the mob, before Buffy pulled away. "They're here," she whispered. They were on the upper level of the club, and Buffy grabbed Faith's hand, pulling her toward the balcony. Buffy's arm stretched out and pointed toward the bar. There was a group of boys there, looking, like most of the guys in the club, like they were predators. These boys though, weren't looking for a quick lay—they were out for blood.

Another boy, looking rather drunk, stumbled into their midst. Buffy watched this boy with curiosity, because, though the presence of the ten or so vampires below was almost overwhelming, this boy felt different—inhuman.

One of the vampires grabbed his arm, and in one smooth motion he spun, pulling a sharpened wooden stick from his pocket and plunged it deep into the guy's heart. From there, his movement became almost untraceable to a normal human eye and Buffy watched, her curiosity overwhelming the need to fight, as this boy staked two more of the vamps.

"He moves like we do," Faith said into her ear.

"Not quite," Buffy replied. "He can't tell which ones are vampires. He's fighting blind."

"How can you tell?" Faith asked. Buffy didn't answer, but instead lifted herself onto the banister and launched herself over. She landed in the empty circle that had formed around the fighting men and pressed her back against the boy's. He stopped moving and glanced over his shoulder.

A moment later, Faith landed beside her, a grin spreading across her face in anticipation of the fight.

Without speaking, Buffy reached over and took his stake, keeping her eyes fixed on the people forming the circle around them. There were still seven or eight that were vampires, and Buffy threw both stakes, dropping two of them.

"Why did you do that?" he yelled.

"There's too many of them," she replied.

"So, what?" he yelled back. "We're going to run?"

She smiled smugly at the snarling vampires. "Three against them? The odds are in our favour, now." They turned towards each other, and without hesitating, Buffy grabbed a bar stool and smashed the seat on the ground. The stool splintered, and Faith grabbed two pieces of wood. She threw one to the boy and then raised her own, ready to do some damage.

Their backs came together again, and they rotated around the circle.

"The one with the blue top," Buffy said softly, "and the guys on either side of him."

They moved, then, and Buffy took the four in her view, moving efficiently and managing to dust two of them before they had a chance to move. She kicked one of the other ones, knocking him to the ground, and threw one stool leg at the other before falling to one knee in front of the fallen one and plunging her makeshift stake into his chest.

When she looked up, she saw that Faith had finished off the vamps she had taken on, and that the boy had done just as well as they had. The crowd, having no evidence of a fight, was starting to fill in the gap they had created. He moved toward her, and took a seat on a remaining bar stool.

"You're the Slayer," he said, signaling for the bar tender to come over.

"Slayers," she corrected, gesturing to Faith. "Do you do this often?"

"Every night," he replied.

"You're a little bit young to be fighting demons full-time," she said, refusing the offer of a drink.

"I'm a contractor full-time," he said. "This is just a hobby."

Buffy nodded, impressed. The boy had a pointed face, and wide eyes, with his long, dusty coloured hair falling in greasy clumps around his face. His features didn't strike her as familiar, but there was something, maybe the dark, haunted look of his eyes, that reminded her of someone.

"I've always wanted to meet the Slayer," he said. He frowned. "My dad dated a Slayer, once."

"There are a lot of us, now," she said. "But I'm, like, the real, real Slayer. Like, the actual Chosen One." She looked up, nervously, but Faith had disappeared into the crowd, apparently disinterested in the boy that moved like a Slayer.

He scrunched his face up, like he was trying hard to remember a fact for a test. "Buffy?" he asked, as he sipped on what looked like an Apple-tini, and looked up at her through his thick bangs.

Buffy nodded; unsurprised that someone in the field of demon killing would know her name. She hesitated, because she knew how offensive this question could be. "What are you?"

"Not entirely sure myself," he admitted. "My parents, I think, were vampires."

Buffy flinched. "That's not possible." The boy took another sip of his feminine drink, and offered his hand.

"I know," he said. "I'm Connor."

Q

There was movement from the ground floor of the barn, and Clark sat up from where he had been dozing on the couch. There was only one person who would be visiting him this late: someone who lived in a house where no one slept.

"Dawn?" he called.

"Yea," she replied. "It's just me."

"You want to crash on my couch?" he asked. Since Buffy had left, the girls across the road had been restless. They had stopped keeping a schedule for patrolling, and often didn't sleep, staying up to train, sometimes collapsing from exhaustion. Dawn, being a normal human who needed six to eight hours a night, was looking more drawn and ragged with every passing day.

She stumbled on the stairs, and Clark rushed forward and caught her. "That super speed thing does come in handy, doesn't it?" she asked. He shrugged modestly and picked her up, placing her gently on his couch.

"You can have my bed, you know," he said. She shook her head.

"The quiet of your loft is more than enough."

"It's cold out here," Clark protested.

"I really don't want to intrude."

They fell silent for a moment, before Clark said, haltingly, "Have you heard from Buffy?"

Dawn looked down at her hands. "She ran away like this before, you know," she said, softly. "After she killed Angel."

To Clark, that name was vaguely familiar—perhaps he had been mentioned by one of the Slayers when he had visited; and he thought that, through his pain, he had heard the vampire, Drusilla, mention him, when he had been kidnapped by her.

"She had to kill Giles?" Clark asked. Though Dawn had come over, looking for a respite from the bustle of Slayer life, and despite the fact that they had both recently lost father figures in their lives, they rarely talked about anything more serious than their classes at college.

"She didn't kill him," Dawn said. "He was already dead. She just destroyed the demon that took over his body."

"It must have been hard, though," Clark replied. "She said he was like a father to her."

"It was hard for her to stick around," Dawn said. "I think I understand this time, I really do. All these girls are her students, and she's really tried to infuse into them the knowledge that sometimes you have to do whatever's necessary to save the world." Dawn closed her eyes, and she could see it again—Buffy standing close to her, holding her shoulders steady, and her soft, urgent words pierced her heart. _"Dawnie, I have to…"_

"She'd sacrifice everything for us," Dawn whispered. She looked up, angry suddenly. "The girls don't know how to look at her anymore," she said. "Like she's some sort of machine that doesn't feel. They're wrong, though. They're so wrong."

Clark knew what Dawn was talking about; he'd heard the girls talking the few times that he'd come over. They were mourning the loss of Giles and there had been rumours about the way that he'd died; that Buffy had marched into the basement and loped off his head, execution style; that she'd set her jaw and plunged the stake into his heart before running off, thirsty for a fight, to kill Drusilla.

He knew that it wasn't true. In the short time that he'd known Buffy, he'd seen first hand her empathy; he'd experienced her desire to help, her inability to let someone in danger remain so.

"Buffy's a good person," he replied. "She'll come back to you."

"I hope so," Dawn whispered.

Q

It was difficult, Willow thought, not to be angry at her.

The last time Buffy had left, Willow had taken it the hardest. She was just a girl whose best friend up and left her without explanation. It had hurt, but she had learned to forgive. Buffy had her own rules—she was the Slayer, at the time, the one and only. No one could be expected to understand what she was going through.

Now, though, there were thousands of Slayers around the world. It was Buffy's job to find them, to train them, and she wasn't a child anymore, either. She knew that Buffy had taken Giles' death harder than the rest of them, but they had all loved Giles. And sure, the girls were talking about her, as if she were cruel, apathetic and unable to hear their mutters.

But Buffy had to grow up.

Xander was dying. The cancer was spreading throughout his body. He was so high on morphine that most of the time he couldn't even tell who she was. The cancer pushing up against his optic nerve had taken away all this remaining vision, supernatural or otherwise.

He had muttered to her, a few weeks ago, that he'd rather be blind than see everyone he loved die. It was a strange side effect of his meteor-rock infused eye transplant that gave him the ability to place on a relative timeline when people were going to die. It came at a grievous price, though—his normal vision faded away and left him with nothing but skeletons and dust.

Willow couldn't make herself to leave the hospital. She slept next to him on a chair when she could get away with it, and she set up her laptop, her only link to the outside world. She immersed herself in her work, not thinking about Xander, or Buffy, or how Dawn would look at her with those tragic doe eyes. She didn't think about the friends she had alienated, Chloe, and the Slayers that she'd gotten friendly with.

They'd all stopped coming by. A month of watching a friend die was too much for them to handle; a month of watching Willow rot away next to him, as if her life was being drained too, seemed wasteful.

It was then that she heard a familiar voice—not familiar in the way she'd come to expect, the same doctors and nurses each day, calling out to each other in the same tired tone of voice, but friendly familiar. This was a concerned, confused voice; it was Clark.

"Lois," he called, "where's Chloe? Is she alright?"

At the sound of Chloe's name, Willow sat up straighter. She saw Clark talking to a woman and a man, about Chloe. Apparently she'd hurt herself, and Willow started walking down the hall, glancing in hospital rooms until she found Chloe, looking drained, but alive.

"Chloe," she said, rushing forward. "Are you alright?"

"Willow," Chloe said, sounding surprised. "You look terrible."

"You're the one in the hospital bed," Willow pointed out.

"Yeah," Chloe said, laughing softly, "but I'm pretty sure you've been camped out on a hospital chair, and those are worse."

"What happened?"

Chloe looked down, wanting to avoid Willow's gaze, but when she saw the bandages on her wrists she flinched and looked up again. "I don't know," she said. "I mean, I can't remember."

Clark walked in then, and Willow skittered away from him—the last time she'd seen him, he had pushed her up against a wall and threatened to kill her. "Willow," he said. "Sorry." He stood awkwardly near the door, and then moved away from it, giving Willow an escape route. She took it graciously and waited outside.

After Clark left, Chloe was surprised to hear him and Willow conversing in hushed tones outside her door. She expected them to be saying things about her supposed suicide attempt, but to her surprise, they breached a different topic entirely.

"I need Buffy to come home," Willow said. "She wouldn't have left if it wasn't for you."

"What do you mean?" Clark asked, sounding confused, but guilty too, as if he'd had his suspicions.

"She couldn't deal with having feelings for someone that she couldn't have," Willow replied reluctantly, "again. She didn't want to risk breaking up you and Lana. If it wasn't for that, she might have stayed, might have let someone in. Probably she wanted it to be you comforting her, and she didn't want it to lead to something else."

She paused, and Chloe could imagine Willow's eyes dark with anger. "I need her to come home."

Clark was silent for a long while before he replied. "I'll find her."

Q

"What exactly is the problem? It's a coffin shipping a body. I want to be the one breaking that seal, and only when the box is safely in a Luthorcorp laboratory. Get it done, or it will be your body being shipped home in a box."

Lex held the phone away from his head when he saw her walk around the corner. "Lana," he said, sounding surprised. She opened her mouth, like she was about to speak, but then paused.

"What's wrong?" he asked. He listened as she portrayed the story of Chloe's illness, how she had tried to kill herself, how she now appeared to be hallucinating. He listened, trying not to show how eager he was to help her, to prove himself.

"There's something else," she said, hesitating again.

"What is it?" he asked. The look in her eyes changed from hopeful to accusatory, and he knew that she had gotten his promise of goodwill toward Chloe before approaching this subject for a reason.

"When I was at the hospital, I spoke to a friend of Chloe's, Willow. She told me that her friend, Alexander Harris, was in the hospital, dying, because of an experimental procedure that was done on him. Lex, she said that the doctors that had performed his surgery were working for Luthorcorp, and that you'd endorsed the surgery personally."

Lex's lips tightened at the accusation. He tried to use his money and influence to help the people that he cared about, but, more often than not, those same people would come back to him, speaking of betrayal and blasphemy.

"Mr. Harris is a former employee of mine, who is dying of cancer. I assure you, I did nothing to promote rogue cell growth in his body."

"Cancer?" Lana repeated, sounding surprised. "She said something about an organ transplant."

"This Willow is clearly mistaken. I suggest that you inspect the source more thoroughly before making unfound accusations."

"Lex," Lana said, regret apparent in her voice.

"Lana, I'll make sure that Chloe gets the help she needs," Lex interrupted. He returned to his work, and Lana left the room, feeling slightly ashamed for having jumped to the wrong conclusion about Lex, again.

Q

Perhaps he was underwater, he mused. Pursing his dried out lips, he contemplated the idea for a couple of minutes. His thoughts began to blur, as if his mind was going out of focus. He shook his head slightly, trying to form some real coherent thought, so he forced himself to study the situation again.

Perhaps he was underwater.

He remembered the last time he'd been underwater, locked in a box. He had been able to hear the currents passing him and sometimes he'd been able to see the sun.

The world was silent now. He wasn't underwater.

He let himself slip into fantasy for a few moments, before pulling himself out. The colours, the touch of his loved ones, they had been comforting, but he couldn't let himself tumble into madness. It was much too difficult to find himself again, once he'd been lost like that.

So he focused on the pain, the hunger, the overwhelming feeling of being lost and abandoned. He wished that his head would throb, because then the pain would be anything but constant. And he imagined warm, human blood pouring into his trembling lips—then he was back in this box.

He wondered how long he'd been in here, trapped like canned fish, starved; deprived of light and company. It could have been mere days, but it felt like months.

He'd been trapped like this before; he didn't know who trapped him now, but then… then it had been Connor.


	2. Chapter 2

_Smallville_ and all of its related elements are copyright © 2001 - 2007 Tollin-Robbins Productions, WB Television and DC Comics. Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

_Buffy the vampire slayer _and all of its related elements belong to Fox, the WB and Joss Whedon.

Chapter Two 

Considering his best friend's supposed insanity, her possession by a ghost, and her subsequent kidnapping, he wasn't surprised that his scavenger hunt for the missing Slayer had slipped his mind. Once everything with Chloe was back to normal, he enlisted her help in researching where she might be, while he started to look.

Clark checked everywhere in Smallville, first. It took him twenty minutes to look in all the public areas in the town at super speed; though he felt terrible about it, he x-rayed homes too. He was very sorry that he had decided to do that when it not only bore no fruit, but also scarred his almost completely innocent eyes.

He ended up at Lana's residence soon after, and after they discussed their inability to be a proper couple in any context, Lana started to advance on him. Images from his recent peeping-Tom activities flashed through his mind, and, for the first time in his life, he jumped away from Lana's touch for reasons other than fear of breaking her.

"Clark," she said, sounding like she was attempting to blanket her fury in faux comfort and understanding. "As long as it takes…"

"Yeah," he said, backing away from her. "I have to go, uh, I have to do…" he turned slightly pink before continuing, "stuff. I have to do stuff and, er, things."

Minutes later he was back on the streets, grasping a picture that Dawn had given him, and wondering if people would recognize him from his renegade days. He wondered if it would bother him if they didn't.

Glancing down at his flannel, he realized that he wouldn't be getting into any clubs looking like this. After a quick detour, in which he emptied his wallet for a plain, tightly fitting black shirt, he positioned himself in the line at a club that he used to go to. Considering how large Metropolis was, he worried that Buffy would never show up.

Taking a deep breath, he told himself that waiting in every line would take forever. Squaring his shoulders, he bypassed the line and approached the bouncer.

"What do you think you're doing?" the bouncer, a man nearly larger than Clark, asked.

"Going into the club," Clark replied, donning a mask of confidence. "It's Kal. Go ahead and ask your manager."

The bouncer spoke into a radio, and moments later a familiar face appeared. An entire summer of spending every night jumping from club to club had created for him a reputation among the club owners. He had never missed a night, and the pattern was the same each time—he would arrive with, or pick up a gorgeous girl, and then blow her off before the night was done. Sometimes, he repeated this pattern in several different clubs in one night.

"Kal!" the man exclaimed. He was a short man, dressed in a classy skinny suit. He wrapped his arms awkwardly around Clark's shoulders. "Where have you been?" He pulled Clark closer and whispered, "The girl? The one you were waiting for? Have you found her?"

Clark smiled, doing his best to copy the smile that Kal had done for months—a sarcastic and condescending smirk, dangerously contrasting the honest grin that Clark Kent often wore. "I'm looking for someone," he said, and held up the picture of Buffy.

The man pulled him in through the door, past the scowling bouncer. "She's gorgeous, my friend," he said. "But I haven't seen her around here; I would remember a face like that. Stay for a drink, will you?" Kal had been known for his infinite tolerance for alcohol and very deep pockets.

"Not tonight," Clark said. "I'm going to keep looking."

"We've all missed you, here," he said. "You will come back soon?"

Clark nodded and started to walk, preaching to himself about the importance of a confident swagger when attempting to spread a crowd.

Q

Willow was jittery. She had been convinced to take a break from watching Xander by the fully recovered Chloe, who had been enlisted by Clark to help find Buffy. She sat now, quite close to Chloe on a couch, her lap top resting on her knees, her foot touching Chloe's thigh.

The doorbell rang, and Chloe got up. Frowning, Willow put a pillow over her foot; without Chloe's body heat, it was suddenly quite cold.

"Will you eat?" Chloe asked. She was holding a pizza box in one hand, and a large mug of coffee in the other.

Willow nodded. "I do that eating thing, yeah," she said, and then turned back to her computer. She reached out for a piece of pizza with one hand, and placed her other hand over the keyboard. A glow spread out from her fingers, and her eyes rolled up slightly, so that her other hand was left to grope for the pizza blindly.

Slightly amused, Chloe watched Willow's hand and moved the pizza box so that it was out of her reach. She sat back down and giggled as Willow sighed and gave up.

"Come back to reality, Willow," Chloe called. "As fascinating as your witchy websurfing may be, pizza beckons."

The glow disappeared, and Willow turned towards her, and grabbed a slice of pizza before Chloe could move it again. "I've tapped into video surveillance for public places in Metropolis… and some private ones," she explained as she chewed on her pizza. "But I didn't find anything until today. Look at this tape: its last night, a pretty upscale club in Metropolis."

Chloe moved closer to Willow and peered onto the computer screen. "Yeah, I've been there," she said. She watched as a boy attacked someone—a very vampire-like someone, judging by his prompt return to dust. Minutes later, two girls fell from the sky and circle around, their appearances contrasting each other. The blonde one was, without a doubt, Buffy. The other girl moved just like her, but was pale skinned and dark haired, with black eyes and lipstick. Chloe didn't recognize her.

"It's Faith," Willow explained. "I don't know who the boy is."

"I'll call Clark," Chloe said, and, to Willow's displeasure, wiggled away from her and got up from the couch.

Q

The sudden light that burned his eyes was as welcome as pain could come. He enjoyed darkness, in normal circumstances, and would not usually have found fluorescent light scalding his eyeballs as cause to celebrate, but here he was. His lips cracked as they moved, of their own accord, into a smile.

"Start intravenous blood," a man's voice said. "We need it healthy before we can begin."

A large, round, skin coloured sun appeared in the corner of his box, just in his sights, and he was shocked when, seconds later, a face appeared on it. "Truly amazing," he said. "A demon with a soul; we'll do research comparing him to others before we start the project."

"We should start the project right away, Mr. Luthor," the first voice said.

"Before we start," the bald one said, "we need to unsure that we can control it."

"Based on our studies, we should be able to keep in contained. Though it houses a soul, it still has all a vampire's innate weaknesses: holy water, sunlight, crosses."

Angel felt himself being lifted from the box, and quickly placed on some sort of hospital bed. The lights were far too bright, so he closed his eyes and was quickly overwhelmed by the fear for the unknown torture they were planning for him.

He felt a needle being plunged into his forearm, and a moment later gasped, his back arching from the sheer pleasure of having blood in his veins again.

"We should be able to proceed much more rapidly with it than with the other subject, based on its healing capabilities."

He was pulled upright, still very weak from his long period of starvation, but, with a roar of frustration, Angel fought. He landed a few good hits, his flailing limbs sending two of the lackeys across the room, but he was too distracted by the pounding of their hearts; the smell of their blood. He felt the IV rip from his arm, and the blood flow stopped.

Angel collapsed onto the ground. He felt hands, pulling him upward, into an upright cage, only slightly taller and wider than he was. His hands were fastened into cuffs, holding his arms out to the side, as if he were being crucified.

"It's ingenious, really," the bald man's voice said, "this contraption you've designed to hold it."

Angel's eyes slid open, in time to see the men's faces disappear behind a stream of water. He strained his head, and discovered that the water fell in every direction that he could see. He could feel its heat from where he was chained. He could tell, from how the mist burnt his skin, that it was holy water.

Q

"Angel," Buffy said. "Your father is—"

"Yeah," Connor replied.

"He never told me," she said. She knew, now, that the look in his eyes, the desperate look of having done and said things that he now regretted, was a genetic trait. If vampires could even pass on genes, she meant.

"He might have done," Connor admitted. They walked now, outside the club, having left Faith to tear up the night with some wild mortals. "My life is kind of complicated."

When Buffy looked at him with a curious expression and implored him to continued, Connor said, "I thought I had this normal life, you know? I had all these memories, and a family, and a future, like anyone does. But I started to realize that I was different—I could move faster than other people, jump higher, hit harder. My parents brought me to Wolfram and Hart, and I met Angel."

Buffy wrinkled her nose. "How old are you?" She counted back in her head, trying to figure out if Connor was born pre-Buffy, or post-Buffy or, heaven forbid, during-Buffy. It had only been a few years since they'd broken up, and this kid was at least twenty. Pre-Buffy, then.

"I don't really know, I guess," he said, "which is what I'm trying to say. Suddenly I had this whole other life in my head. I grew up in a demon dimension, and returned here, and time was all different. The man that raised me told me that Angel was evil, and I tried to kill him, and then I tried to kill myself. He had my memories rewired so that I'd have a chance at a normal life."

"Angel had your memories rewired?" Buffy asked. "How?"

"Contacts at Wolfram and Hart, I guess," he said.

Buffy closed her eyes and imagined Angel. She had forced him out of her head since his supposed death in Las Angeles, only letting him resurface in her mind when Spike showed up again. The possibility that he might still be alive—that there might still be a future for them—was a prospect she wouldn't let herself think about.

"Do you know where he is?" she asked. Connor shook his head.

"I heard about the evil vampire rocks," he said. "I figured Angel would be heading this way—either to get himself a piece of action or to help beat the enemy down."

"Oh," Buffy said, disappointed. "I haven't seen him. Why are you looking for him?"

"He's my father, Buffy," he said, his eyes darkening. "I never got a chance to know him. I just need to find out if he's still alive."

Smiling sadly, Buffy gestured down the road. "If you need a place to stay," she offered. He didn't smile back, but followed silently followed her home.


	3. Chapter 3

_Smallville_ and all of its related elements are copyright © 2001 - 2007 Tollin-Robbins Productions, WB Television and DC Comics. Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

_Buffy the vampire slayer _and all of its related elements belong to Fox, the WB and Joss Whedon.

A/N: The two chapters previous to this have been rewritten as of the end of March. Make sure that you quickly reread them, because otherwise not much is going to make sense from here on.

All scenes featuring Clark and Faith were inspired by and dedicated to MysticWolf1.

Chapter Three

From across the street, Clark let his eyes be drawn up to the glowing marquee. His feeling of trepidation upon approaching this club was, in his opinion, completely justified. Morgan Edge owned this club, and the last time he'd visited, it had ended with the very influential and dangerous crime-lord following him home and threatening the lives of everyone he loved.

Perhaps, also, it had something to do with the amount of time he'd spent in this particular club. It was a well known hangout for those that are filthily rich, very attractive, and looking for a quickie in an expensive hotel.

Bypassing the line at this club was a big deal. Looking down the queue of people, he actually recognized some of their faces—not from his previous night club experiences, but from television. It starting to get late, and the line was still long. He ducked behind a tree, checked for onlookers, and then super sped past the bouncer.

He went to the bar first—he had been pretty close with the bartender. When the bartender—Andre—saw him, he exclaimed and extended a hand.

"Where've you been?" he asked loudly. "There have been less heartbroken girls wandering around since you left."

"I went home," Clark replied, unsure if his friend would notice his intense attitude adjustment. To Clark's dismay, he picked up on it right away.

"I thought home was just a place you were trying to forget," Andre said. "Something happen, man? Someone die?"

Thinking of his dad's recent death, Clark nodded, but didn't elaborate. He pulled the picture forth and placed it on the bar; he ignored the attention he was drawing from the nearby women.

Andre finished pouring Clark his usual, and then glanced at the picture. "Another one, eh?" he asked, chuckling.

"She ran away," Clark explained. "I'm just trying to bring her home."

"Never took you for the chivalrous type," Andre admitted. "Yeah, I recognize her; broke a bar stool earlier tonight. She was with her," he said, and pointed with his tap nozzle to a dark-haired girl who was dancing scandalously with a group of boys.

Without taking his drink, Clark turned slowly from the bar and headed toward the girl. He found that the darker part of him, the part that wasn't totally buying Lana's innocent-and-flirtatious gig, was attracted to this dangerously sexy woman. She moved in a wildly precise way—as though she carefully planned how each movement was to affect the boys around her, but didn't want anyone to know.

He cut through the crowd around her and took her wrist.

"Whoa," she said in a sensually hoarse voice. "Wait your turn." She raised her head to meet his eyes and a sly grin spread across her face. "Hey gorgeous," she said, "Wow; I'll bet you never have to wait."

She let herself be led to the bar, and she wrapped one arm around him. Clark could feel how strong and self-assured she was—there was no doubt in his mind that she was a Slayer.

"I'm Faith," she stated, narrowing her eyes at him as though she was attempting to see through him. She gestured to Andre, and then stood on her toes, straining her head towards his ear. "It's kinda cold out," she whispered. "I'll bet you've got a nice warm bed to go home to."

Clark could feel himself turning pink, and pulled himself firmly from her grasp. "Do you know where Buffy is?" he asked.

She stepped away from him, and then she looked him over again, and he could tell what she was looking for: a threat.

"Depends who's asking," she said tersely.

"Clark Kent," he replied.

Her dark lips cut a smile into the pale pallet of her face. "Clark Kent," she said, sounding impressed. "You're much prettier than you've been made out to be." She backed up again, pushing people behind her, and moving around him, looking him up and down. "Buffy, yeah," she continued. "Left a little while ago with some super-boy that helped us deck a couple vamps. I wouldn't be surprised if they're doing the nasty right now: slaying gets B all riled up, and she goes for the super human types."

She trailed a finger down Clark's jaw line and muttered, barely loud enough to hear over the pounding music, "Gets me all hot and bothered too, if you know what I mean."

Clark jerked away from her ask though she'd flicked Kryptonite in his direction. "Not that, erm, you're not, uh, but, um," he stuttered. Faith sighed.

"Strictly business," she said. "I kinda admire that in a guy." She grabbed both of the shots that Andre had placed out for them and knocked them back consecutively.

"Put that on the Luthor tab," she called, and Andre pulled out a folder from behind the vodka bottles.

"And you are?" he asked.

"The Slayer," she replied, peering over the bar as the bartender wrote down the price of the drinks next to the account that Mr. Luthor had set up for her and the legally-aged girls.

Curious, Clark craned his head. "Is there a Clark Kent on that list?" he asked, wondering if Lex had given him the honor of bottomless drinks at a prestigious night club.

"Yeah," Andre said, grinning. "For soda only though. Friend of yours?"

Blushing, Clark cleared his throat and nodded, before turning back to Faith.

"Guy's underage," Faith said, punching him on the shoulder. "Never would have thought. I guess that's why Buffy's not all gooey over you—she goes for the old ones." Frowning down at her hand, she conceded, "but if you're as hard all over as your arm is, I'm pretty sure she'd make an exception."

Clark's jaw dropped; he had never before met anyone who mortified him so completely. He was glad that in this noisy night club, no one could have overheard her.

"Do you know where Buffy is?" he asked, hoping that the darkness hid his profuse flush.

"Yeah, man," she said, intertwining her fingers with his. "I'm taking you back to my place."

Q

Without warning, Connor stopped walking. Buffy didn't even notice at first, and when she did, she turned around and raised her eyebrows at him. They'd been walking in silence for a while, though Buffy had pretended not to notice the few times that he had opened his mouth and drawn breath, about to say something, and then closed it again.

"What's up?" she asked. She was surprised when a grin spread across his face.

"Are you ready for another fight, Buffy?" he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he gestured for her to follow and started to run.

Keeping up with him was difficult—not because he was faster than her, but because she hadn't slept properly since she'd left Smallville. Every so often she'd stumble, and the ground rushing up at her would be a painless slap in the face, waking her up the way that the wind in her hair couldn't.

She briefly wondered what exactly they were running to, but it was barely a few minutes before they reached their apparent destination. Connor didn't hesitate before jumping; he flew upward and grabbed onto the bottom of a second floor balcony. Buffy jumped after him, but one of her hands slipped. Just as the other one started to slide Connor grabbed her wrist and pulled her up.

"You look tired," he said.

"Thanks," Buffy replied, laughing sadly. Connor turned to the window, and, looking over his shoulder, she could see exactly what they had come for.

"How did you know it was here?" she whispered.

Connor didn't answer.

A demon was materializing inside the room. It started with a swirl of dust, and then came together, forming a large, spiky form. It was mostly black, its skin thick like armor, with dusty coloured markings covering it like tattoos. It carried a sword, held upright in front of it, and approached the small bed.

Buffy could see a child lying in it.

Before Connor could react, she kicked the door open and ran at the beast, weaponless and already tired and near defeat.

Q

Clark looked skeptically at Faith.

"It's a hotel room," he said. "An _empty_ hotel room."

"B said she was heading home," Faith protested. "Right now this is the only home we've got."

"There's only one bed," Clark pointed out, as he walked into the hotel room.

"So Buffy and I snuggle up," she said, reaching out to touch his arm lightly with her fingers and widening her eyes at him. "Mr. Lex Luthor and I aren't on the best of terms right now, so it's better that he doesn't know I'm here."

"Why's that?" Clark asked. Faith's face fell, and, for the first time that night, she didn't look as though she was about to jump his bones.

"It's a long story," she said. Taking a step back, she got defensive. "I don't want to talk about it, okay?"

Taken aback, Clark said, "Sure," and sat down on the bed.

Faith looked away from him, stared blankly at the curtains, and they remained like that, silent, for a few minutes before Faith jerked out of her reverie and looked back at Clark, her mojo apparently returned in full gear.

"So," she said, straddling his lap, his face almost completely smothered in her chest, "what do you want to do until they get back?"

Clark placed his hands firmly on Faith's waist and lifted her, standing up at the same time, and placed her delicately on the bed. He grinned at her, visibly frustrated, and said, "I have a girlfriend."

"And you're one of those loyal types?" she asked, scowling at him. "The only time I meet those is when they're already taken."

Noise came from the hall and they both looked over at the door. They both glared at the door as though they could see through it—only Clark actually was. He saw Buffy and a stranger walking down the hall together, in evident good cheer.

"A baby eating sand monster?" Buffy was saying. "I would have thought that they'd have gone extinct with Meer cat and anteaters."

"This may come as a shock to you," the boy replied, "but they aren't actually extinct."

Buffy stopped walking for a moment as she peered curiously at him and said, "That would explain a lot, actually."

They started walking again, down the hall towards their hotel room, and Buffy punched his arm affectionately. "So, tell me about him."

"No," the stranger—super-boy, Clark presumed, replied. "You tell me about him."

"From a non-girlfriend perspective?" Buffy asked. "He was, well… contemplative."

"Broody?" the boy asked. The two of them giggled. "Yeah," he continued, "he'd sit alone in a dark room, staring at the wall, for five hours, and then he'd march out of the room, chastise everyone for not getting work done, and then go and brood some more."

They laughed, a tired, kind of sad laugh, and Buffy looked through her pockets and pulled out a room key.

"Did you hear that?" Faith whispered up to Clark, who was still standing, defensive-like, a few feet away from her.

The door opened and Buffy walked through, Connor close behind her.

"Clark," she said, sounding disappointed. The smile, remnant from her conversation with Connor, faded away. She looked him over, as though he were here to bring her back to a life she wasn't quite ready to face.

"I can't," she said. Her voice betrayed her distress, and Clark thought that maybe she wanted to come home, but needed someone to help her find the way. He moved towards her, reaching out, ready to comfort her, convince her, but before he could say anything, she pushed past the boy behind her and fled.

The door slammed behind her and the noise echoed in the silent room.

Q

The feeling was sudden, sharp and overwhelming. Spike looked up into the dark sky, as if it could give him some answers, but it only glared back, dark and secretive.

But it was coming from the sky, or maybe the air—possibly from the bright moon. It was a feeling that appealed so strongly to the darkness within him that he felt terrified—it was the kind of pleasure, the kind of longing that could easily overwhelm the sense of ethics and goodness instilled in him by his soul.

It was far away right now, he knew; it wasn't faint exactly, no, it was pungent like the smell of an overripe apple, but it was new. The feeling, the newly pulsating aura, would only get stronger, and he could tell that it meant nothing good.

He knew what it meant, vaguely at least. A darkness was rising, and the first step of the plan to bring it forth had been completed. Blood had been spilled, spells had been cast, and there was one thing for sure—

A new Big Bad was in town.

Spike turned, planning to head back to the house immediately to tell Buffy, before he remembered that she was still conspicuously missing in action. He rocked back and forth on his heels, wondering if Willow would pry herself away from Xander's bedside long enough to do some research, hoping that the Slayers would listen to him and wishing, more than ever, that Buffy would come home.

It was then, in his moment of indecision, that he missed the sound of whistling air as something large came into contact with his head. He fell to the ground and a dark figure moved over him. Without much effort, it picked up the unconscious vampire and swung him over its shoulder before lumbering away, joints moving stiffly, and head carried high.

This figure could feel it too. The feeling washed over him like a hot shower after years of being cold. He reveled in it. It was beautiful like nothing he had experienced before.

It was fresh like newly turned soil and an unearthed corpse and he knew—a new evil was coming.

Q

Please review!


	4. Chapter 4

_Smallville_ and all of its related elements are copyright © 2001 - 2007 Tollin-Robbins Productions, WB Television and DC Comics. Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

_Buffy the vampire slayer _and all of its related elements belong to Fox, the WB and Joss Whedon.

A/N: Again, just a reminder that Chapters One and Two might not be the way they were when you left! Return and read them... or proceed and be confused.

Chapter Four

"Let her go," Faith said. "She needs some time."

"She hasn't got time," Clark replied, moving towards the door. "Xander's dying."

The news hit Faith stronger than she thought it would have. Buffy hadn't spoken much about why she'd left Smallville—only stated that Giles was dead and that it had been her fault. Faith hadn't been especially close with any of the Scoobies; asides from Buffy, they'd never seemed all that special to her. Xander though, had been pure in a way that she'd never experienced before.

They'd slept together, once, and that had been enough to convince him that he knew her. He'd tried, even when everyone else had given up, to save her. In return, she'd almost strangled him to death.

But now, hearing that he was dying… she had always known that people died, but had assumed that probably, she'd be gone long before anyone she cared about even thought about dying.

Clark slammed the door behind him, and caught up with Buffy easily just before she reached the elevator. He called out her name, and she ignored him, pressing the elevator button a few more times for emphasis.

He took her arm in his hand and she turned around to look at him. Her eyes were wide and she looked scared. "I'm not going to hurt you," he said kindly.

"I know," she replied. She put her back up against the wall and slid down it, bringing her knees up to her chest. "It's not you that I'm scared of."

Crouching in front of her, Clark said, "Then what is it?"

"It's Dawn," she said. "It's Dawn and Willow and Spike and Xander. It's all those people that I left behind—I can't face them. Not yet."

Clark thought about that summer that he had run away—this night seemed to be dedicated to its remembrance. He had known, even with the ring on, that the people back home needed him. He had also known that it was his fault that they were in pain. He remembered the agony that the ring had caused him and how he had sat, slumped in a phone booth, and longed for his mother's voice; yet he had still been unable to return.

"I'm not asking you to come back with me," he said quietly. "But a lot's been going on since you've left and," Clark paused and tried to catch Buffy's eye, "it's been hard. For all of us."

Buffy looked up at him, and she could see that he was hurting. His life was complicated, fraught with the burdens that accompanied his secret, his hero complex and his hormones. "What happened?" she asked, expecting a nasty breakup with Lana, or a gruesome, meteor-freak related death.

"My dad died," he stated. Buffy broke eye contact and stared down into her lap, grief and remorse overcoming her. She hadn't known the Kents all that well, but she had been able to tell that they were good people.

"It was my fault," Clark continued. "And no one can really understand what that's like. I never talk about my feelings because I always felt that they were too different… too alien. But I think that you would understand."

When his father died, he had retreated from everyone he knew, pushing away Lana, Chloe, even his mother. He knew that no one could comprehend the guilt he carried, or the devastation of knowing that a choice of his had caused a death.

But Buffy—she'd put the stake through Giles' heart. Her sister kept insisting that Buffy wasn't to blame, but Clark knew how a hero's mind worked. Drusilla had killed Giles to punish Buffy, and to Buffy, he was sure she construed the event as entirely her fault.

The elevator door opened, remaining empty and expectant. It closed again, and Clark continued. "Would you mind? If I talked to you, I mean?"

Buffy reached out to him, and he took her hand. "Yeah," she said, her voice quiet. "You should do the talk-y thing."

"On one condition," Clark amended. Buffy looked at him questioningly, as though she didn't really think he was in a position to negotiate. "If I talk, then you have to talk, too."

When she hesitated before answering, Clark continued, "If I don't get to talk to someone, I'm going to have all this inner toil building up in me. You don't want to be responsible for my suffering, do you?"

She scowled at his kind face, but nodded tersely. "You first," she said, squeezing his hand, amazed at how it was more like trying to crush a warm metal glove than offering comfort to a friend. She squeezed again, harder this time.

"Are you trying to break my hand off?" he asked, and he moved forward, wrapping his arms around her. She shied away from the sudden contact, but he was large, strong and all around her. He picked her up and he brought her back to her room, where Faith and Connor were having some sort of angry duel.

"I don't care if you are the spawn of Angel, you can't just touch my stuff, little man," Faith was yelling. She was holding a crossbow at Connor's throat, and the boy was holding a sword casually, as though he had been simply looking at it.

Clark moved past them and placed Buffy on the bed.

"You don't want to touch Faith's sword," Buffy pointed out. Frowning, Connor threw the sword aside and Faith lowered the crossbow.

"Would you two give us a minute?" Clark asked.

Faith only had to glance at Buffy to know that this was what she needed, and she picked her sword up off the ground, swung her crossbow over her shoulder and left the room.

Connor paused though, and looked over the intrusive farm boy. Clark was easily a foot taller than him, and was almost twice as wide as he was. As far as Connor knew though, he was just a normal kid, and Connor was more than certain that he could take him down.

"You're lucky, you know," Connor said. "In another reality, I might have sunk you to the bottom of the ocean and impregnated your girlfriend with a demon goddess."

Clark frowned, shocked and a little bit disgusted with this greasy boy's outburst. "Thanks, then," Clark said, looking to Buffy for some sort of signal, but she merely shrugged. "I guess," Clark added. Connor retreated, but not before reaching for another one of the weapons in the pile.

This time he grabbed a large red scythe; before he could take a step, Buffy had him pinned to the wall. One hand wrapped around his neck and the other holding a stake at the ready, she hissed, "We're a bit touchy about our weapons around here."

She lowered him to the ground and pulled the scythe from his hand. Smiling defensively, she held her arm out, entreating him to leave.

Finally alone, they turned to each other. They felt this familiar awkwardness floating between them—as though they'd never quite been good friends. They could both feel, also, this great potential for amity between them; they'd suffered in similar ways throughout their adolescence, and it was their alienation from the rest of the world that brought them together.

"I asked Lana to marry me," Clark offered.

"That's amazing," Buffy replied, and let the shock hit her, just a little bit harder than she would have expected. He was just a kid, really, and when she had been his age she hadn't thought about marriage—not even for a second. She was all about saving the world and expecting to die tomorrow. "What did she say?"

"She said yes," Clark said, sounding surprised. He wondered why he wasn't disillusioning Buffy right away—admitting that, though it sounded like a fairy tale, it had been erased by a clever piece of alien technology. Maybe, though, by telling her this story as though it had really happened, he could pretend just a little bit longer.

"She still doesn't know," Buffy gestured with her hands at his chest, "about you?"

"No, I told her," he said. "I took her to the Fortress."

"It's pretty there," Buffy said thoughtfully. "Romantic. A little bit cold. How'd she take it?"

"Pretty well, all things considered," Clark admitted. "I'm not sure she made all the connections though; that it was my ship that brought the meteor shower that killed her parents; that the people who came out of the spaceship during the second meteor shower and tried to kill her were… like me."

Buffy shrugged. "If she's got a spare brain cell or two, she'll have worked it out. Basically, when stuff comes crashing down from above, it's you or one of yours."

Clark thought fondly of the time he'd tossed a tractor halfway across the town. She was right, he figured.

"You know, I saw Lana the other day, at the Met U gym, and she didn't mention any of this," Buffy remarked. The fact that Buffy had been at a gym at all was strange—however, Faith swore by the artificial atmosphere and all-angle mirrors as a mood booster. That a bride-to-be would fail to mention her impending nuptials was even stranger.

Clark frowned; images from that day—Lana's broken body, Lex's crazy eyes, his dad's stony expression—leapt through his mind. "She was in a car accident," he said slowly. "She died."

Buffy, struck by the sincerity in Clark's tone, frowned too. "She didn't mention that either," Buffy admitted.

"My biological father, in the Fortress, turned back time for me," Clark explained. He thought of how Chloe had reacted, with skepticism and disbelief, and how she had need proof—clearly in this case, there was none he could offer.

"Crazy aliens," she said fondly. "Don't they know that in this galaxy, what's done is done?"

Clark didn't reply. "You went back then, and saved her?" Buffy asked. "Now you get to live happily ever after?"

He shook his head. "The reason she died was because I told her my secret," he explained. "Knowing who—what—I am, it's dangerous. So the second time, I didn't tell her; I saved her, but it wasn't that simple."

"Time travel never is," Buffy agreed, thinking of messy movies and hypothetical situations.

"I died a while ago," he said uncomfortably. "I didn't have my powers anymore, and I was shot, and I died." He paused and entwined his fingers on his lap, looking down at them long and hard, as though they were cue cards, explaining how to continue. "My biological father brought me back."

"Your kind are really more like Gods," Buffy remarked, sounding astounded. "Playing with time, raising the dead, water into wine, immaculate conception—"

"But he said that there had to be a balance," he continued. "The life of someone I loved, in exchange for bringing me back."

Buffy nodded slowly. "The sacrifice," she explained. "Part of any good resurrection spell."

"The first time around," Clark said, "that sacrifice was Lana. The second time though, I saved her, and my father… my dad died, instead."

They sat next to each other, perched on the end of the bed, and those words, those awful, contemplative words, crowded the small hotel room.

Incredulously, a minute later, Buffy was sobbing.

"Buffy," he said, alarm lacing his voice.

"It's not fair," she gasped between sobs. "None of it; we're just… I feel like we should still just be kids."

Suddenly, Buffy could feel the weight of every death pushing down on her. The appearance of her dead lover's son, still hopeful that Angel might have survived; the images of Willow and Dawn floating in her mind, hurt and wondering why she hadn't yet returned; Giles, pale and lifeless on the cave floor; Xander, cancer ridden and dying; Clark's tragic eyes and Clark's dead father; they all collapsed on her at once. She'd been burying her pain the way she always did—she waged her secret war against the deviants, and let Faith convince her that forgetting life was just a night club away.

Clark put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, feeling her body; that it was usually so tense and strong made it even more frightening to know that it could also be this frail.

Secretly, he was jealous. He never had a choice about being made of steel—even now, he held his friend, who cried for the lives of those they'd lost; she cried for the life of his father, but he couldn't let go.

Buffy could hold the whole world on her shoulders, but when it came down to it, she was human. She could put away her superhero complex and her public face and really, really cry.

No matter how badly he wanted to break down and sob like he was being torn apart, his mask was tougher than metal.

Bullets would bounce off of Clark, despite everything, even now.

Q


	5. Chapter 5

_Smallville_ and all of its related elements are copyright © 2001 - 2007 Tollin-Robbins Productions, WB Television and DC Comics. Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

_Buffy the vampire slayer _and all of its related elements belong to Fox, the WB and Joss Whedon.

**Chapter Five**

Lana drove along the road in her SUV, driving a little bit faster than she normal would have. She was upset. No, she amended, she was frustrated.

When Chloe had called to tell her that she'd fallen asleep while researching with Willow, Lana had been more than happy to drive back to Smallville to pick up her friend. When she'd gotten there, though, she'd found Chloe sulking outside of a bathroom among three other girls, all of them clearly waiting their turn.

"Why don't you go visit Clark?" Chloe had suggested. "I might be a while."

So Lana had wandered from her old house to Clark's loft, which was empty—not surprising, considering the earliness of the hour. She'd gone to his house next, knocking softly and walking into the kitchen. Mrs. Kent was standing there, as though frozen, in front of an open fridge, holding tightly onto a Tupperware container.

"Are you alright, Mrs. K?" Lana had asked.

Mrs. Kent had snapped out of her reverie and greeted Lana with enthusiasm, before holding up the plastic container and explaining, "It went bad. I made it for Jonathan…"

Wanting desperately to avoid an awkward moment of reflection on her boyfriend's dead father, Lana asked where Clark was.

"Probably still sleeping," Martha had said. "He didn't get in until very late."

Gritting her teeth, Lana sped around a corner, barely pausing at the red light. She wondered what he was out doing until late. She wondered why he couldn't forget about farm chores and dumb excuses for her.

She had cheerily thanked Mrs. Kent and walked quietly up the stairs. She had slowly opened Clark's bedroom door and peered inside, hoping that she'd catch him mostly naked; if he was sleepy and confused, he might forget about all the reasons he refused to touch her.

Instead of a pretty, messy haired boyfriend, tangled in sheets on his quaint, farm boy bed, she had seen a girl.

A familiar, blonde girl curled up on her side and snuggled up with all of Clark's pillows. Some sort of strange, red weapon was propped up at the head of the bed. On the floor at the foot of the bed, Clark lay sprawled as though he'd been knocked unconscious and had fallen that way.

Neither party had stirred at the sound of the opening door. They must have had a long night, Lana mused. Judging by their fully-clothed-ness, they had not been doing what every jealous-girlfriend part of her insisted. It was true, also, that Lois had slept many nights in Clark's bed, but Lana was pretty sure that Clark had slept on a couch, not the adjacent floor.

She had let out a little huff, hoping that it would wake one of them, but they both remained stubbornly comatose. She had turned and left, stomping angrily down the stairs, waving only briefly to Mrs. Kent, and slammed the door rather harder than she'd intended.

_Buffy_. Lana knew that she was a nice enough girl, but she didn't like Clark's sudden trust for the girl, as though Lana could try for years to get Clark to open up to her, but all it took Buffy was breezing into town with her superpowers and her pointy stick.

Lana paused for a moment, and let herself completely lapse into thought. The other person that he had immediately opened up to had been Alicia Baker, another super powered—

She was jerked forward, her seatbelt catching her sorely around the chest, and her head smashing loudly against the windshield. She realized, then, that she hadn't been paying very close attention to the road, and slowly, she let her eyes raise to see what she'd hit.

A boy was standing there, the car warped and bent around him, his arms bent up against the wreckage, as though he'd tried to stop the car from hitting him.

He should have been dead, but he just stood here, completely in tact, eyes wide and the front of her car almost fully enveloping him.

They stared at each other for a long time.

Q

By the time Clark had woken up, both Buffy and his mother had left the house. His mother had left a note, explaining that she'd gone to a conference in Metropolis. Buffy was to be found in his barn, beating up on a large pile of stacked hay bales.

He took in her disheveled appearance, the rags wrapped hastily around her fists, her hair tied into a messy knot at the back of her head. He held out the bowl of cereal he'd poured for himself, but she refused.

"Will you fight with me?" she asked. Clark frowned.

"What do you mean?" They both knew that he could knock her out pretty easily—a backhand swat or a lazy kick and she'd be down for the count.

"Well," Buffy said, giving in and taking the bowl from him, clumsily discarding the cloths she'd wrapped around her hands. "Not the way you fight, like a big buffoon, just hitting things out of your way. I mean real fighting; the kind that takes training."

"I have to do my chores," Clark said. "You should go have a shower or something, you might feel better." Buffy scowled at him.

"Yeah, I will," she said firmly, "but not because you told me to."

Clark couldn't help but laugh. He watched as she tilted the bowl upwards, about to drink down the milky remains, but he sped forward and snatched it before she could. "I like the bottom bits," he explained, and then drank the milk before she could protest.

She scoffed at him, and kicked up some dust in his direction before walking back to the house.

Clark watched her until she got to the door, and then looked quickly around. He always felt, even with people who knew about him around, that he needed the sneak when it came it his powers. He had grown fairly nonchalant when it came to his abilities around his parents—he'd pick up a tractor or toast bread with his eyes, but when they weren't around, he felt he'd lost his safety net.

But as soon as he started moving, he felt better. He took careful aim and threw the hay out to the pastures. He fixed a dozen of the fences that always seemed to be broken. It took him the amount of time allocated for mucking out twelve stalls before he realized that his phone was ringing.

He slowed down and answered it just as Buffy returned from her shower, dressed only in a pair of boxers and a flannel shirt.

"What's up with your complete lack of short people clothing?" she asked.

Clark didn't answer; instead, he said, "Hello?" into his cell phone.

It was Lana. She was at the hospital.

"Can I come?" a woe-eyed Buffy asked.

Clark frowned at her attire. "If you get dressed, maybe."

"I don't have any clean clothes," Buffy said, pouting. "Will you take me shopping?"

"Buffy," he replied, his annoyance making its way into his voice, "You should go home."

She stared at him. Finally, she shook her head sharply. "I'll put the dirty clothes back on. Just give me a minute."

When Clark had returned from Metropolis, he had thought he had understood the silence that seemed to overcome people when he neared, but it was only now, when he watched Buffy and let the millions of questions he had for her tangle themselves up in his mind, that he truly understood.

"Buffy," he said again. She turned back to look at him. "Why did you come back to Smallville, then?" he asked.

"Baby steps, Kent," she replied. "Today didn't feel right anyway."

He moved over to her, and put his hands on her shoulders, appreciating the softness of his flannel, and looked at her purposefully. "You came home because your family needs you. Go home, Buffy," he said.

"Yeah," she said, nodding slowly. "Yeah, of course. You're right."

Q

Buffy stood awkwardly at the door of her house. She wondered idly if she should knock, if she should apologize, if she should have brought gifts. She wondered if Dawn would hate her, or if they'd all be happy to see her and welcome her home into warm, loving arms.

As she rang the door bell she realized—she should have brought gifts.

Dawn, her face hard, slammed the door in Buffy's face.

"Well that just about shoots down _my_ Plan B," a male voice said. Buffy spun, ready for an attack, but was surprised when a smile appeared on the pointed face of the boy who stood just out of reach.

"Connor," she said. She had been completely shocked to meet Angel's miracle son, and the hours they had spent together had revealed a lot to her about what had been going on in Angel's life.

She realized, now, why he had taken the position at the demon law firm Wolfram and Hart. As Connor had explained how his memory had been rewired, she had remarked that he had received a "reverse-Dawn". She knew that the monks who had performed the magic on them had been very powerful men, and that getting a favour out of such a powerful person required a position of even more strength, and the ability to jerk more extensive strings.

A position such as the CEO of a branch of Wolfram and Hart.

"There are no hotels in Smallville," he said, moving closer to her. "That was Plan A. I was hoping to be able to grab a piece of your floor for the night, but clearly even you're not being allowed that privilege."

"Is Lex Luthor funding your project? He should be able to give you a bed," Buffy said, not really very interested in where he was going to sleep.

"No, I'm funding it," he said. "Angel put a bunch of money into my savings account before Wolfram and Hart decided to off him."

"Oh," Buffy said. She stared up at the house, and her stomach writhed inside of her. Now that she was here, standing in front of this building, she was homesick. They'd only lived in the house for a few months now, but the atmosphere of the place was the way things used to be, and she missed it. She wondered how Willow was holding up.

She started to wander, and decided to head back to the Kent farm.

Not surprisingly, Connor wandered after her.

Q

"It's risky business, you know," the voice said. Spike forced an eye open, and saw the figure, standing just out of sight in the shadows. His wrists throbbed in a way that only a creature without a heart beat could experience; the cold metal gnawing thanklessly on his skin.

"It takes the cooperation of many—the kind of team work that isn't usually seen in the vampire world."

He moved forward now, and his distorted, vampire face materialized in the light. "You're part of that team now," he continued. "Whether you like it or not."

The whistling of air warned Spike, only a split second before the blow came. Blood splattered across the floor in a thin arc.

"We can all feel it coming, now that it's started," the rough voice continued. "For most of us, it will bring us together, unite us as one single minded unit… but you reek of a soul. You would warn the Slayers."

Suddenly, the man reared back, and pulled from behind him a long sword. He plunged it deep into Spike's stomach and smiled, his teeth sharp and shining, at the sound of Spike's long scream.

Spike remembered torturing Angel in a way similar to this for the Gem of Amara. He started to choke, and coughed desperately; blood exploded from his throat and connected, near perfectly, with the tip of the arc of blood he'd already left.

He remembered how Angel had stubbornly refused to give away the location of the ring—but now, Spike realized that he would give almost anything to make the pain stop. He was pinned, like a large wingless butterfly to the wall of his holding cell, and the pain shot in mind numbing blows through his entire body.

He knew, though, that with this soul riding heavy in his heart, he wouldn't be able to give anything away. Even to make the pain go away, the guilt would hurt infinitely more.

Q

"It's not just the strength," Connor said suddenly. They'd been sitting silently on the floor of Clark's barn for at least ten minutes. Buffy looked up, frowning slightly. She moved her hand quickly across the floor, smoothing out the doodles she'd drawn in the sand.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I mean," Connor said, sighing, "that you've had all sorts of training. The memories from my other life; I have some training there, but it was all just the strength and weapons. I remember fighting all sorts of monsters, but it was just cuts and blows, no finesse. I've seen Slayers fight before, and, well… it's more like dancing."

He stood up, bouncing on his feet uneasily. "Teach me?" he asked, sounding almost bashful.

Slowly, Buffy rose to her feet. "Balance is important," she said. She'd taught dozens of Slayers to fight, but with all her experience, she was put off by the fact that he was a _boy_.

"Balance," she repeated, "and perception; sight is the least important of your senses. When you fight vampires, you fight at night."

She looked around the barn, and suddenly each object became a training tool. She let a grin spread across her face—she'd worked at a school before, but this was what she really loved. Every day fighting vampires on the Hellmouth was no longer a page stolen from the book of her childhood, but was now a lesson plan.

She grabbed a few rags off the floor. She offered Connor a rag and then turned around.

"First, you watch," she said. He awkwardly tied the rag around her face, checking two or three times to make sure that it covered her eyes completely.

"Once you're blinded," she explained, "every other sense becomes a million times more important." She let her sight—the very concept of it—disappear from her mind. Her world was only smells and sounds; she concentrated on the air on her skin, the taste of the dust. She could hear Connor's heart beating, the sound of his shallow breathing, the manure in the stalls, the breeze that streamed through the open barn door.

She felt the air shift and suspected that someone had arrived. She didn't move though.

She heard the blow coming—he had neither given warning nor waited for her request. Without hesitation, she brought her arm up and blocked his punch.

"You're holding back," she pointed out. She almost regretted it—she heard his feet shift on the hay strewn floor, and a shift in the pitch of the whistling air—something much larger and faster advanced and she ducked this attack, and then launched one of her own, which he managed to avoid.

She had been expecting this, and didn't pause before spinning into the air and kicking with both legs. She hit him both times—knocking him back with the first blow, and then down to the ground with the second. She bounded forward, feeling the change in air pressure as she moved over a body, and then stuck her leg out, catching his stomach with her foot to slow her down, and turning again, landing with one hand on his chest and the other tight around his neck.

"Geez," a voice said from the barn door way. "You don't keep any normal kids around here, do you?"

Buffy pulled off her blindfold and looked up at the two boys—Clark standing next to a shorter, dark skinned pretty boy.

"I guess," Clark said slowly, letting a grin cross his face, "you're not the only one who drinks a lot of milk."

Q

Remember to review if you want me to write instead of study!


	6. Chapter 6

_Smallville_ and all of its related elements are copyright © 2001 - 2007 Tollin-Robbins Productions, WB Television and DC Comics. Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

_Buffy the vampire slayer _and all of its related elements belong to Fox, the WB and Joss Whedon.

A/N: Of course, I'm sorry for how long it took. Exams are underway and I spent twelve hours in a classroom reviewing for Calculus. Everyone should feel sorry for me. Anyhow, I promise that I should have another update by the second week in May. Enjoy!

Chapter Six

It took him almost a minute to fully open his eyes. His body was exhausted; the mist from the waterfall that surrounded him burnt his skin; the scars that ran down the length of each leg tore painfully when he breathed, as though the slight movement of his diaphragm reverberated down the entirety of his body.

The operations had become more frequent, of late, he observed.

It was nearly impossible to tell the days apart in a place like this—if not for the fact that they turned the lights off at steady intervals, he would have no way of approximating the amount of time he'd been here.

It had been a daily routine, at first. The waterfall would shut off and the holy water would run to the front of the moat and disappear down the drain. There would be a few moments of relief before they came for him.

Then, they would lower him, crossbows at the ready, onto a long, white table. Clamps for his wrists, ankles and neck, and a muzzle to keep him from biting, and he was ready to go.

They cut open his hands, first. With his head bolted firmly in place, and the anesthetic thankfully taking the pain away, sometimes he'd have no idea what they were changing about him until that night, when he was alone with the hurt.

It had terrified him most when they'd cut open his chest. They'd painstakingly replaced his breast bone—one chip at a time—with whatever metal alloy they'd filled the rest of his body with. One surgeon with some sort of flamethrower—he could feel the heat on his face—welded the bits together until they formed a flawless shield. They'd waited patiently for it to cool before they wrapped him in his skin again.

He wondered if they had any idea what kind of monster they could be setting loose. One perfect moment later, he could be this un-killable machine with a penchant for violence in the worst way.

Tomorrow, they'd said, they started work on his spine.

At least, he thought desperately, the other one had escaped. He'd heard them talking about 'it', and how shocked they were that it had survived. Angel had seen him though, seen him running past the water fall that held him.

There was no way though, that Angel should be allowed to escape. Perhaps, he thought, they'd cut into his brain, next, and replace that organ with something metal and false.

He knew though, that he didn't deserve such a merciful and faultless end.

He deserved as much pain as they could create for him, and the liability for the destruction that he could cause.

Q

Buffy rose from where she had pinned Connor. She inspected the boy who stood next to Clark—though Clark had implied that he was more than human, he had no demonic energy, and none of the strange pulsating energy that Clark had; neither vampire nor alien, she had no idea what he was.

"I'm Buffy," she said, holding her hand out. Like two testosterone-filled frat boys they squeezed on each other's fingers, testing the strangers' strength. He was strong, Buffy decided; not quite Clark-strong, but more than Connor-strong.

"Victor Stone," the boy replied.

He turned back to Clark, and gestured to Buffy and Connor, who was pulling himself up off the ground. "So all of you," he said, "you're bionic, like me?"

"No," Clark replied, moving past Buffy to head up to the loft, "I was born like this. Buffy… well, it's complicated. And him…"

"Connor," he said, offering a hand. Victor wrung his wrist, obviously hesitant to engage in another test of strength. "I'm the miracle child of two barren vampires," he explained, letting his hand fall.

Clark paused on the third step and turned to Buffy. "Is that possible?" he asked.

"Vampires?" Victor asked.

Buffy looked oddly at Connor. "Technically, they weren't barren, then," she pointed out.

"Is _he_ a vampire? It's, like, daylight though," Clark continued.

"Are you kids serious?" Victor insisted.

"That's the point," Connor sighed. "It's a miracle because it shouldn't have been possible. It's an oxymoron. Didn't you go to school?"

"He must be evil then. You don't put two evil things together and get a not evil thing," Clark pointed out.

"I went to school," Buffy said, sounding affronted. "I did blow it up though."

"Okay, so which one of you is the vampire?" asked Victor, starting to look nervous.

"Buffy," Clark whined, "you invited a vampire into my barn?"

"Okay, stop," Buffy said.

They all looked over at her.

"Victor," she said, in a reassuring voice. "No one here is a vampire."

"Clark," she continued, sounding frustrated, "_No one_ here is a vampire."

"Connor," she said, turning to address him where he kneeled on the ground. "You'd be surprised how difficult it is to get a decent education when your life is like, 'apocalypse, apocalypse, homework assignment, apocalypse.'"

There was a long, drawn out silence as they all contemplated their situation.

"Come on, Victor," Clark finally said. "We'll talk. We'll get all of this figured out."

Nodding slowly, Victor followed Clark up the stairs.

Q

"They really are pretty," Willow said. "I mean, if you ignore all the death and cancer and torture, and actually look at them."

Chloe watched Willow, who watched the gleaming stones. "We're out here to walk," Chloe pointed out, "not to admire the aesthetics of alien meteor rocks." She reached out and grabbed Willow's wrist, using it as a tether to pull her away. "The colour goes badly with your hair," Chloe said. "Plus, the whole cancer thing."

"I can feel the power, now," Willow whispered. "Before, when I was just holding that little piece, it seemed normal—more or less. Now though… it's powerful stuff, Clo. It… it scares me." She turned away from the rock and met Chloe's eyes, looking frenzied.

"I scare me," she said softly. Chloe pulled harder now, and managed to tug her away from the gorge. She sat down on a grassy patch and dragged Willow down next to her.

Chloe watched Willow's facial expressions—they changed fluidly, as though every thought that swam through her brain surfaced on her face first. "I've been talking to the Coven a lot lately," Willow admitted slowly, as though confessing to an addiction relapse.

"They're the witchy people who helped teach you?" Chloe asked. She didn't do a lot of digging on the Wicca front—relative to the amount of snooping she would normally do—out of respect for her new friend. She'd seen how dredging the secrets from the pond of the past could ruin a friendship. Her desire to stay on Willow's good side outweighed her professional curiosity.

And it wasn't as though this meant her relationship with Clark had meant less to her—she had learned from her mistakes and planned not to repeat them.

"Kind of," Willow said, looking uncomfortable. "I didn't meet them until I was way into Wicca—in a bad way."

Chloe readjusted on the hard ground and let a confused smile creep onto her face. "Like Wicked Witch of the West bad?" she asked.

"Like junkie in desperate need of a fix, bad," Willow amended. "It was terrible—I hurt the people I loved, I pushed them away: my girlfriend, Tara," she stuttered across her dead lover's name, "she left me. I nearly got Dawn killed."

Slightly surprised by this sudden openness, Chloe was intrigued to note that, in her mind, the honesty was a more overpowering positive quality than the substance—magic—abuse problem was negative.

"So you called the Coven," Chloe offered. "They helped you with your problem."

Willow shook her head. "No,' she said, nervously. "I got off the magic without them. Tara came back. Everything was really starting to get better."

Chloe could tell, by the devastated look on Willow's face, that this wasn't the end of the story. She hadn't lived happily ever after.

"Tara got shot," she said, her eye brows pinched, her lips contorting. "She died, and I kinda lost control."

"What do you mean?" Chloe asked. "Lost control?"

"It was like," Willow started. She trailed her hand distractedly through the grass, and remembered all the Coven had taught her—she could feel the energy from the grass flowing into the earth; it was connected to everything. "It was like the rest of the world ceased to exist. I wanted nothing more than to destroy the people who'd killed Tara." She looked up at Chloe, eyes wide and teary. "So I did." She pressed her lips together, trying to gauge Chloe's reaction.

"Chloe," she said softly, "I killed a man."

Chloe jerked away from Willow. "What…" she muttered. Her eyes darted away from Willow's face, and back and forth across the landscape. She forced herself to look back at Willow, telling herself that people did desperate things when faced with the death of a loved one. She remembered how, when Clark had died, and she'd engaged in a struggle with Gabriel. The gun had been between them, and though when she closed her eyes, she could hear the gunshot, again and again, she'd never been able to discern, from her memory of the tangled fingers and metal, who had pulled the trigger.

Willow grabbed her hand and pulled her closer again. "I'm not asking you to forgive me," she said quickly. "Or to even still want me around," she continued, looking frantic. "It's just that, with Xander being sick, I know that, if I let myself be that person, again, I could cure him. But, no matter how badly I want Xander back, I can't let that happen because it could be the end of the world. I'm so close to losing control."

"The end of the world?" Chloe whispered.

"Like, for real," Willow confirmed. Her face was pinched in a way that made her look like a child again, just a scared child wanting comfort; Chloe reached out to her and pulled her into a hug.

"I need to know," Willow said into Chloe's hair, "that if it comes down to it… you have to kill me, Chloe. I trust you to do that."

Closing her eyes, Chloe sighed in reply. "There's got to be another way," she whispered.

Pulling away from Chloe, eyes dry and unyielding, Willow didn't respond.

Q

"Hey, Buffy," Clark called from his loft. Buffy, who had been balancing upside down, each hand gripping a part of the tractor's steering wheel, toppled to the ground.

"That's a neat trick," he said.

"The falling bit?" Buffy grumbled. She gestured to Connor and the two of them ascended the stairs into the loft. Victor sat stiffly at Clark's desk. He held a photo in his hand, but was looking over his shoulder at Clark.

"When I was in there," Victor said, "I wasn't alone."

"In where?" Buffy asked.

"The lab," he replied, shortly. "There was someone else in there. Another test subject, like me." He paused.

"The weird thing is," he continued, "they never referred to me by name. I was always 'the subject' or just 'it'. This other person, though, they called it the angel."

"Angel?" Buffy whispered. Connor grabbed her arm.

"Could it be possible?" Connor asked her.

"I don't know if it was an actual angel," Victor said. "But they kept it in holy water, all the time; this giant waterfall, all around it. They always talked about how much faster it was healing, and how well it was responding to the… adjustments."

Buffy's mouth fell open. "It's him," Connor said. "It has to be."

"We can save the angel, right? I mean, the four of us, we're like an army or something."

Buffy's mouth changed, slowly, into a grin. "This isn't even a fraction of the army," she said. Turning to Clark, she continued. "Looks like it's time to go home. For real, this time."

Q

The lights turned off. Angel closed his eyes; tried to sleep; tried to imagine being somewhere more like home.

He thought of the Hyperion hotel; holding baby Connor in his arms, Cordy and Wes and Fred and Gunn, just for a moment, like a family.

His eyes snapped open. The water had been turned off. Usually this happened during the day, and was accompanied, shortly after, with the peering eyes of scientists.

This time, though, nothing.

He peered through the cage, his eyes accustomed to the darkness, taking in the terrible sight of hanging limbs and surgical instruments.

A figure appeared around the corner. He was walking confidently, shoulders square, and was dragging a white-clad figure along with him.

"Juice him," a deep voice said. He was holding something—a cross bow, maybe—at the other man's back, and he pushed him closer to Angel.

He recognized the hostage, now; it was one of the scientists. The other figure, large, dressed in dark colours, seemed to have scared the scientist into submission. He didn't move as the scientist moved nervously towards Angel's cage, but his arm, thickly muscled, followed the target.

Hands shaking, the man approached Angel with a long syringe with a glowing yellow paste in it. Angel knew that it was the serum that powered the hydraulics that powered his newly strengthened joints. The cage door was swung open and it was jabbed unceremoniously into his shoulder.

"Free him," the deep voice said from across the room. Shaking, it took the doctor a few tries to get the shackles open.

Angel stepped down from the cage. The doctor skittered backward, obviously terrified of him.

"Let's go," the man with the crossbow said. He lowered his weapon and turned around.

"It's dark out?" Angel asked, his sore throat from lack of use.

Looking back, the stranger nodded, and gestured.

They ran, and Angel marveled at how strong he was now; if he wanted, he could jump through the ceiling and to the roof. If he wanted, he could run through the walls.

When they were far past the perimeter of the institution, deeply past the surface of a cornfield the man paused. Angel stared curiously at his green leather vest and sunglasses, despite the darkness.

Angel had learned that help rarely came without reason.

"Why?" he asked.

"If you're as promising as they make you out to be in the reports, then I could use your help," the man replied, his voice still much too deep to be natural.

Since he had nearly given his life to challenge the Circle in Las Angels, he hadn't considered what sort of path his life should have been on. He'd been captured by these scientists too soon after it had ended, and he'd never seen escape as an option.

Idly, he thought, he was thirsty.

"Help with what?" Angel asked.

"The search for justice; bringing down the corrupt," he answered.

"Sounds fair to me," Angel replied. He wondered how strong he was. "I'm always up for a good fight against evil." He stuck his hand out, and the man took it. "I'm Angel," he said.

The guy pulled his hood down with his other hand, and removed his sunglasses. The square jawed face of a young man smiled sheepishly at him.

"Oliver Queen," he replied.

Q

"I think they're commandos," Buffy mused.

A Slayer picked up a gun and looked at it carefully. "You never let us play with guns," she said, looking at Buffy with distain.

Buffy shrugged. "Never really liked them," she admitted. "I got shot once."

"You got staked once," Dawn pointed out. "Never turned you off the woodies." She gagged slightly on the last word, realizing its connotations, and turned pink.

A few Slayers busied themselves tying the unconscious commandoes to the support beams of the barn.

"They were after me, I think," Victor said. "I don't know what kind of operation you're running here, Kent, but those girls… they disarmed six full grown men with guns in like… fifteen seconds."

The entire Slaying Brigade had marched over to the barn for a meeting when they'd heard that Angel was being held captive. Dawn had come only reluctantly, still unsure of whether Buffy merited forgiveness.

None of the Slayers had met Angel before, but they'd been taught his story in 'Slayer School' and had, some of them, seen him when they'd rescued him from a rogue Slayer. They knew about his strength and power as a vampire, and also about his capacity to do good. They also knew what he meant to Buffy.

Now, they sat awkwardly on the barn floor, some of them poking curiously at the unconscious commandoes.

"Do we get to torture information out of them, once they wake up?" one of the Slayers asked.

"No," Buffy exclaimed.

"Giles let us torture the Bringer during the battle with the First," one Slayer pointed out.

"No he didn't," the girl sitting next to her hissed. "We put a spell on him, and then Giles slit his throat."

"Oh yeah," the first one replied.

"Where's Willow?" Buffy asked, afraid that the answer would be 'Sitting loyally beside her dying best friend'.

"She went on a walk with Chloe," Dawn replied. She grinned mischievously. "Willow has a crush on her."

"What about Spike?" Buffy asked.

The other Slayers fell silent. One of them spoke up, "We haven't seen him in days."

"Seriously?" Buffy asked. Though it wouldn't have been shocking to discover that evil Spike had skipped town again, the idea that soulful Spike had done so was almost unbelievable. He'd gained a newfound sense of responsibility with his soul, and had become rather attached to the girls—and he especially wouldn't have left Dawn.

"Okay," she said. "First we get Angel, then we find Spike."

For twenty minutes they debated tactics, and then Lana showed up.

"You can't go," she said firmly to Clark.

There were uncomfortable whispers from the sea of Slayers. They knew, of course, that Clark's 'demon' status was strictly a secret. Disgruntled, even Buffy had to force herself not to protest. Clark, bumbling and inexperienced as he was, was still the strongest and fastest among them. His heat and x-ray vision didn't hurt at all, either. Most of their plans so far, in fact, contained him as a major player.

Surprisingly enough, Clark stood up for himself.

"It's not your decision to make," he replied, kindly.

"Yes, it is," she hissed, pulling him aside. "I watched you die once," she continued, her hush tones not nearly quiet enough to be missed by anyone but Dawn and Victor.

"It's a rescue mission," he said. "Nothing is going to happen."

"Look," Buffy said loudly. "It's fine. We'll go without him. He needs to stay and watch the commandoes anyway."

It was then that Lana noticed the black-clad men sitting patiently, tied to the beams. "Try to get some info out of them," Buffy continued.

Ten minutes later, she had delegated tasks to each of the Slayers: commando guard duty, patrolling and rescue mission. She assigned Dawn as the supervisor of the commando guards—she could be trusted to keep her head and help the commandoes keep theirs.

It was Operation Stealth from there on. They changed into black clothing, gathered up some gadgets that they'd bought with Lex Luthor's money, and then headed out.

They drove to Metropolis, Victor driving, Buffy shotgun and four Slayers packed into the backseat of Chloe's Bug.

It took an hour to drive there, and seven minutes to break in. They snuck towards the room where Angel was allegedly being kept. Before they could get within a hundred feet of it, however, they all rushed into another hallway.

There were people swarmed all over the place, pacing the halls, standing nervously in their white coats. One man in particular stuck out of the crowd—he was in a rage, screaming about wasted money, failed projects and that hell had been let loose.

The man, his bald head glinting dangerously in the fluorescent light, was Lex Luthor.

Q

Please remember to review!


	7. Chapter 7

_Smallville_ and all of its related elements are copyright © 2001 - 2007 Tollin-Robbins Productions, WB Television and DC Comics. Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

_Buffy the vampire slayer _and all of its related elements belong to Fox, the WB and Joss Whedon.

A/N: Sorry this took so long! Exams are over in ten days... whoopee!

Chapter Seven

Suddenly, the world turned red. A dancing seductress licked her lips at him. Everything glowed with a frightening intensity that burned his eyes.

The woman faded into the background, and the red changed to a swirling blue and finally, into flesh. Bouncy hair and wide eyes smothered him but he realized—she held no sway over him.

Next to her, Buffy's large friend panted, groveling like a dog; like a slave. Two men lay dead, one of them painfully bald, both wrapped around the woman's feet.

She reached up and touched the pendant hanging from her neck. It glinted blue and smiled, the hue and hint of malice mirrored in her eyes.

Q

"Connor," Buffy called. "We were having a conversation, in case you forgot."

He jerked slightly, as though he'd fallen asleep, and then looked over at Buffy. "Yeah, of course, I'm sorry."

"You're a jerk, you know that?" Buffy asked in a lazy tone. "Just like your dad. Angel was a big jerk, you know that? Tried to convince me that I deserved better, and that he deserved eternal torment, and then went and had you with some slutty vampire chick."

Connor stood up from the kitchen table, indignant, and then tripped over the commando that someone had left lying around.

"Don't call my mother a slut," he exclaimed. "For the life of me, I can't _imagine_ why Angel would want to leave _you_."

"What were you daydreaming about?" Buffy asked.

"I wasn't daydreaming," he said. "When are we getting rid of these guys?"

"That's what we were talking about, before you decided to go all AWOL on me," Buffy pointed out. She stood up from her chair and dragged the commando off the floor. She propped him on a chair, ripped off the duct tape on his mouth, and held a glass of water up to his face.

"Where were they from?" Connor asked.

"According to the girls," Buffy said, wiping the spilled water from the man's chin and using it to wet his hair and style it so that it stuck straight up, "they were sent to get Victor. They work for some stuffy British doctor. They don't know who the stuffy British doctor works for."

"Did you get a name for said stuffy Brit?" Connor asked.

"Yes sir. Willow and Chloe went to go research it at the Daily Planet. A bunch of the girls went with Victor to go see his girlfriend. Meanwhile, I'm allowed back inside the house, so I'm happy."

Connor stood up and started to clear the kitchen table. It was covered in dirty dishes from when they had attempted to feed the bound Commandos. "Do you think it was Angel that they were keeping there?" Connor said, as though it was only an afterthought.

Buffy stopped playing with their prisoner's hair. She stood up and turned on a punching bag. "What other creature would be held in by holy water?" she asked between punches.

From the kitchen, Connor called over his shoulder, "We'll find him, right?"

Buffy didn't answer.

Q

"We're leaving?"

He turned his head upward, quietly regarding the jet. The boy, Oliver, looked over his shoulder.

"Yeah, I live in Star City."

Angel closed his eyes for a moment. The feeling was stronger now, than it had been when he'd been surrounded by the influence of the holy water. It was a signal; a calling. It felt better than anything he had felt in a long time, but it was so, so far away. Getting into this jet and flying away… that would be the worst thing to do.

Because, though this feeling felt like heaven, he knew, in his soul, that it was probably closer to hell.

"We can't leave," Angel said. The boy's eyebrow's furrowed.

"Why?"

Struggling for the words to describe what he knew, Angel decided he should start at the beginning.

"From what you've told me," Angel said, "you fight big, corporate bad guys. You punish humans for their corruption, give to those who deserve better; you're modern Robin Hood, judging by your outfit, you figured that out already."

Oliver nodded. "And?" he asked.

"Humans are, by far, not the biggest evil lurking in the darkness," Angel said. "Every demon that you've heard stories about, the ones that are just fantasy and madmen's ravings… they're all true." His hunger was getting stronger, and it was severely impairing his ability to form words. "Demons…" he panted, "vampires, they're real."

"What did Luthor do to you?" Oliver asked, taking his arm and leading him toward the jet. "Come on, sit down in the jet. We'll get you something to eat."

Angel threw him off feebly, and, to his surprise, the guy flew across the pavement. He picked himself up, and seemed okay, and started heading back towards him. There was a long cut across his arm. "Listen, man," Oliver said, ask though talking to a mental patient. "I think that Luthor must have screwed with you mind a little, because—"

The smell of Oliver's blood, so real and human, so pungent, overwhelmed him. Oliver's words got lost somewhere in the seductive smell. It had been so long since he'd drank human blood—

He felt the animal take over. He held himself back, hunching over, and could hear Oliver's gasp of surprise. Suddenly, the crossbow was being held in his face. Generally, crossbows were terrifying to a vampire, but it was aimed at entirely the wrong place.

"What are you?" Oliver asked.

Slowly, Angel forced his face to change back.

Seeing his now human visage, Oliver lowered the crossbow.

"_Luthor_ didn't do this to me," Angel explained. "Those scientists replaced just about every bone in my body with metal, but they didn't do this to me."

He took a deep breath and looked away from the cut on Oliver's arm.

"I'm a vampire."

Q

Almost standing up, Chloe twisted in her chair, checking to make sure that the closet door was still closed. She hadn't been bothered when Willow had asked to come along and help with the research, and hadn't even found it very strange that she had subsequently barricaded herself in a broom closet to work some magic, but now that she thought about it, she wished that Willow hadn't come.

It was amazing, she thought, what one could discover on the internet. Within ten minutes of her arrival at the Daily Planet, she'd already found the doctor's address and affiliation, which was, not surprisingly, to Luthorcorp. She'd also found the address of the man that Victor claimed would help him. Now, while she waited for Clark to untangle himself from Lana Lang, she would start on her newest project.

She hadn't thought that a Coven of witches would have a website, but here it was, beautifully formatted and informative. She read all about Wicca and life force and how everything is connected; she found a phone number.

Not about to use up oversea minutes on her cell phone, Chloe snuck into another office and dialed the number that she'd written down.

"Hello, my name is Chloe Sullivan," she started, a phony smile stretching her face, to accompany the falsely upbeat voice. "I'm a reporter with the Daily Planet…"

She used her press pass to get as much information as possible. She knew, though, that the woman was likely portraying witches in a biased light—after all, she doubted that they would want the next headline to be 'witches powerful enough to destroy the world, and steps to take to destroy them'.

"Hey," a voice said. Chloe looked up to see a grinning red head at the door. Without saying boding the witch farewell, Chloe hung up.

"Who were you talking to?" Willow asked. Chloe shrugged.

"Clark," she replied.

There was a sudden whirlwind of papers and the aforementioned appeared.

"Finally shook Lana off?" Willow asked, casually. "She wanted to have sex, didn't she?"

Clark's head whipped around with superhuman speed and he gave Chloe a terrifying glare.

"Well," Chloe said, shocked at being caught betraying a confidence. "Willow is um… I thought she could relate. Her boyfriend was a werewolf, once."

To break the monster glare, Chloe pushed the paper with the doctor's address on it towards him.

With another _swoosh_, he was gone.

Q

Faith picked idly at her nails. She'd been in town for less than ten minutes before Buffy had 'assigned' her to baby sit her baby Slayers, who were baby sitting a robot while he visited his girlfriend. They stood outside the building now, and Faith ordered the five Slayers to approach the house.

Once they were inside, Faith took the opportunity to check out the robot. He was _damn_ hot, she decided. She reached over and touched his arm.

"You feel pretty human," she observed, sounding impressed.

"Thanks," he replied, offended. Faith didn't mind—people were usually insulted by her open, honest and sometimes prickly manner. She could hear a scuffle inside. She approached the open door and found her Slayers standing over the unconscious bodies of some very large men.

"Good job," she said. She walked around to the living room and gestured for Victor to follow. There was a man, still conscious, that was being held at bow-point. She supposed that he hadn't tried to fight.

Another man came into her view, a bald head that gleamed slightly in the dark room. She froze when she saw him.

"Lex," she whispered. Her heart raced suddenly—though she had been, just a moment ago, calm and a little bit bored, she now felt almost scared.

"Faith," Lex said. Amazement flickered over his face. Catching the Slayer with the crossbow off guard, he pushed her aside and rushed Faith. She didn't fend him away, or even move. She felt her body go lax as he put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her against the closest wall.

The other Slayer had recovered and was holding the cross bow to Lex's head. "Can I shoot him, Commander?" the Slayer asked. "I could draw a target on his bald noggin first, if you'd like."

Lex's hands, holding Faith against the wall, were shaking. His face was unreadable—he might have been furious, terrified or murderous… perhaps all three.

"Stand down," Faith said. She made no effort to push him off.

The cross bow lowered.

"Faith," Lex whispered, bringing his face close to her ear, brushing the side of her face with his lips.

"Faith," he repeated, "where is she?"

As though remembering who she was, Faith grabbed Lex's arm and kicked out at his legs at the same time, spinning him to the ground. She mounted him slowly, deliberately.

"You will _never_ find her," she hissed.

She could hear Victor in the background—he was hysterical, demanding to know where his girlfriend was. The same Slayer that had offered to off Lex for her was interrogating the other conscious man.

Lex struggled against her, trying to get free. He was frenzied, pushing against her, hitting her, fighting with all of his strength to get away. He knew that it was futile, that she was supernaturally strong and unnervingly stubborn.

A scream of rage broke loose from his throat. He continued to scream, and when he finally found words again, he managed to form a frantic, panic stricken demand.

"Tell me where my daughter is!"

Q

"You have a soul? All I have to confirm that is your word," he pointed out.

Angel sighed. He knew how difficult it was for people to accept that there was a whole other world out there, where nightmares come true on a daily basis, but he was starting to get frustrated. There was some sort of evil out there, and he was starting to sort out in his mind why the feeling floating in the air was so familiar.

"If I wanted your trust," Angel pointed out, "I could have just told you that vampires are good. I've wouldn't have told you about the terrible things that I've done in my past. I could have kept you in the dark."

Ollie mirrored his sigh. "Okay, I trust you. Now, get to the part where I don't get to go home."

_Finally_, Angel thought. "There are other places that exist," Angel said. "Other dimensions; most of them aren't like this one though, a lot of them are demon dimensions."

"Dimensions?" Oliver asked.

Ignoring his inquiry, Angel continued. "Dimensions can be connected to each other, and, when the fabric of two dimensions, our dimension and a hell dimension, are made thin, something called a Hellmouth is created."

He paused, as though expecting Oliver to interrupt again. "Hellmouths are places where evil creatures, such as vampires and demons, can thrive. There's a ton of mystical energy surrounding a Hellmouth, and so strange occurrences are frequent. Usually, human civilizations can't even exist around a Hellmouth, because demons are so much more powerful there."

Taking a pause to sip politely on the glass of wine that Oliver had poured him, Angel thought of the Sunnydale Hellmouth. Without the Slayer to hold them back, demons would have run rampant. The death rate in Sunnydale, even with Buffy to watch over them, was astronomically high.

"Making a Hellmouth," he said slowly, "is difficult. It takes dozens of demons working together, something that doesn't happen very often, and blood sacrifices and magic and power and a ton of explosives. It isn't something that is entered into lightly. Vampires are prone to turn on each other, and they don't really comprehend the notion of team work."

"But…" Oliver prompted.

"The first part of spell is a call, of sorts, to demons. A magical message is sent to all the surrounding areas in the form of a powerful _feeling_. It is meant to bring together all sorts of evil."

Angel looked through the window of the jet. Though they were still on the ground, if he tilted his head right he could see the sky. The stars almost throbbed with the power of the call.

His voice low, he muttered, "the Hellmouth is coming."

He turned back to Oliver, who was finally starting to realize the implications of what he was being told. He looked at Angel for a long time.

Finally, he said in an almost-scared voice, "It's started, hasn't it?"

Angel nodded; the fear apparent in his eyes.

"It's begun."

Q

Please review!


	8. Chapter 8

_Smallville_ and all of its related elements are copyright © 2001 - 2007 Tollin-Robbins Productions, WB Television and DC Comics. Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

_Buffy the vampire slayer _and all of its related elements belong to Fox, the WB and Joss Whedon.

A/N: There's a certain scene in this chapter that was requested a long while ago by MysticWolf1. At the risk of spoiling anything, I'm just going to mention that it's dedicated to her.

Also, I'm very excited by this chapter, so I think that everyone should review--at least the people on the alert list, I think. After all, whenever I post something, all of you get little emails in your inbox that make you happy, so it's only fair that I should get the same :D.

PS: Exams are almost over, and I'll be able to dedicate every minute of my time to fanfiction writing. Won't that be wonderful?

Enjoy!

Chapter Eight

"Faith. Faith, you have to talk to me."

Lex stood awkwardly in the middle of his office, watching the dark haired woman. She stood near the window, looking out at the fields that surrounded the Luthor Mansion.

"Faith," he barked. She turned around.

"Lex," she replied. Her face was emotionless; she was hiding behind the darkest of the tall walls that she had erected around herself.

"I had my best people looking for you," he said accusingly. "Where were you hiding?"

"I wasn't hiding, Mr. Luthor," she said, voice low and seductive. "Not everything's about you."

Lex slammed his hands on the surface of his glass desk. No one could infuriate him the way that Faith could. When he was around her, high blood pressure and tight muscles were practically a given. He both hated it and missed it desperately once it was gone.

"Are you seriously telling me," he yelled, "that you taking off one morning, with our daughter in tow, had nothing to do with me?"

"I was in Cleveland," she said finally, raising her chin and pursing her lips defiantly. "And it had everything to do with you."

"I supported you," Lex shot back. "I stayed with you through the pregnancy; gave you everything you asked for—"

"To keep me quiet," Faith interrupted. "I got a luxury suite in the Luthor Mansion so that news of your bastard child would stay out of the media."

"Don't you dare," Lex hissed, "call her that." He advanced on Faith, making like he was about to grab her.

"If you touch me," Faith said quietly, "you will regret it."

His hands dropped to his sides and he took a step back. "I wanted you," he said. "I wanted to marry you and have a life with you."

"You didn't love me," Faith replied. "You loved my body. You loved what I could do to you. You never loved me. There isn't such a thing as love, not like that."

"I could have loved you, if you had let me." Their eyes met.

Faith approached him and soon, her face was close to his. Her body wasn't softening, though; it was tensed, confrontational. "If such a thing as love were possible," she whispered, "a creature like you wouldn't be able to feel it."

With a snarl of rage, Lex pushed her aside. She didn't even stumble, but watched, intrigued, as he took his anger out on his desk, wiping it clean with one swipe. He grabbed Faith and slammed her onto the surface of the glass table.

"Tell me," he growled, "why you left."

Faith blinked innocently up at him, as though she really had just been overpowered. "Oh Lex," she said breathlessly. "Hurt me again."

He screamed and lifted her at the shoulders, before crashing her down onto the glass again.

"You're a monster, Lex," she whispered. "I've done some terrible things in my time, but your morals are so out of whack you can't even tell up from down."

She threw him off and kicked out, knocking his feet from under him. He fell to one knee and looked up at her, as though anticipating the next blow.

"When you looked at our daughter," she said, "I could see you plotting. I could hear you talking to the scientists, as though this was the best thing that had ever happened to you. If the Slayer gene were genetic, you were reasoning, if it were passed on to the second generation, then it was something that could be stolen and recreated.

"Before she was even born, you had scientists surrounding me, wondering, will this pregnancy be normal? Will the baby have four heads or three hearts? We were a science project to you, Lex, nothing more."

She offered him her hand, and he looked at it suspiciously, as though it might bite.

"Buffy brought you dozens of girls prepared to partake in your experiments, but, from the day she was born, you had our daughter pegged as an unwilling participant," Faith continued. Lex struggled to his feet without her help.

"It wasn't going to happen," she said. "Not under my watch."

Lex watched her as she stared at him, her dark eyes smothering, before she smiled sadly at him and left the room, her dark hair bouncing to the beat of her cocky gait.

Q

"Where are you going?" Buffy asked.

Connor turned away from the door.

"What, you're my parent, now?" he asked scathingly.

"No, I'm just bored," she admitted. "What's that you're holding?"

"Nothing," Connor said, trying to pull the piece of paper out of Buffy's grasp. She unfolded the paper and curiously regarded the picture on it.

"This is a good drawing," she said. It was a charcoal portrait; the girl smiled deviously and held a small hand close to a pendant that hung from her neck. She was pretty, Buffy thought.

"Who is she?"

"I don't know," Connor said. He snatched the paper back

"You draw like Angel does," Buffy said, her voice sad. Connor sighed, taking in her sudden morose expression.

"Okay," he said. "Come with me."

"Explain-y?" Buffy said, energetic once more.

"I get visions," Connor said, "from the Powers that Be. They give me warnings of danger, and of people who need help."

Buffy blinked at him, considering this declaration. She nodded slowly, as though accepting what he said. "So that girl, she needs help?" she asked.

"Not quite," Connor said. "I actually think it's your friend Clark who needs the protecting. Do you know where he might be?"

"Clark can handle himself," Buffy said skeptically. "He's a big boy."

"Yeah," Connor agreed, "he does have very broad shoulders." He swung his own narrow shoulders back and forth.

"What's up with the girl, then?" Buffy asked. She motioned in the direction of Clark's barn, and they began walking.

"I think," Connor said slowly, "that she's some sort of hypnotist."

"A hypnotist?" Buffy asked, wrinkling her nose.

"The necklace," Connor pointed to the picture, "has some sort of magic. She's going to use it on Clark."

"Whatever he does," Buffy said with a sigh, "he'll feel guilty in the morning."

Q

"Ever since I was little," the girl from the photo said, "I've dreamed about my knight in shining armor." She fixed Clark with a wide eyed, smoldering gaze. "Now that dream's actually come true." Suppressing a smile, she approached him, raising her chin to look into his face. She knew that she shouldn't be having feelings for this boy, that he was just a job, but he was so eager, so pure, that she wanted, just once, to feel innocent again.

Their lips came together, and Simone closed her eyes. She let the feeling of the kiss wash away her sins, and for a second, she was only his. She put her hand around the back of his neck and pulled him closer, forced the kiss deeper; felt her heart jump as his hand settled into the small of her back.

She drew away from him, and let her eyes open.

"Take off your shirt," she said, letting a devilish grin pass over her face. His expression barely shifted, but she could see that her obvious desire was feeding his ego, letting him become more of a person and less of an irresolute drone. His yearning for her, she hoped, might be real.

He took a step back and pulled his shirt over his head; Simone kept her eyes locked firmly with his.

"Your turn?" he asked shyly. She laughed softly at his daring and broke eye contact, finally letting herself look over his smooth chest. Turning away from him, she undid the snaps of her jacket and pulled it off, wiggling her arms out of the sleeves and dropping it to the floor in front of her. She was pleased to see that, when she looked back, his eyes were fixed on her.

Hesitating only a moment, she said, "Now take off the rest of your clothes."

Not audacious enough, or perhaps able, to disobey, Clark started pulling off his pants, even as he protested. "Simone," he said, "with my powers, I could hurt you."

Simone looked at him, her newfound, innocent, well meaning farm-boy love. She needed him. Somehow, she thought, if she could have him, it would mean that she was forgiven. Clearly the scales of justice mattered little if a god such as this could fall into her lap.

"That's a chance I'm willing to take," she said.

They came together again. It seemed as though her words were exactly what Clark had been searching for, and his touch was suddenly unbridled; rough even. His fingers gripped almost painfully into her shoulder; the other hand traveled towards her skirt and slid it slowly down, following its path.

"Make love to me, Clark," she said softly, almost like a dare.

She shuddered into his arms as he lifted her easily from the ground, letting his body take over hers, and for a moment she almost believed that he was the one in control.

She could almost convince herself that he really wanted her.

Q

"Lana must be here," Buffy said, pointing to the SUV in the driveway. "So this hypno-dealie, it doesn't affect you?"

Connor shook his head. "It must have something to do with the vampire lineage," Connor said thoughtfully. "The vision wasn't real clear on the reasoning behind it."

"So, you'll just, what, run in there and kill the hypno-demon?" Buffy asked.

"No," Connor exclaimed. "She's human. I'm just going to get rid of her neckl—oomph!"

A small, dark figure had crashed, full speed, into Connor. He stumbled backward, but Buffy rushed forward, catching the apparent missile before it, too, fell.

It was Lana.

"Lana," Buffy exclaimed. The girl was sobbing as though she'd just been told that the world was ending. For a moment, Buffy considered asking her if it actually was—after all, apocalypse and world-ending were not unexpected in Buffy's life, but she thought that it might come off as a little sarcastic.

Curling up, Lana tried to sink to the floor, her legs no longer able to hold her up. Buffy moved her to the wall of the barn and slid down next to her, wrapping her arm around her shoulders.

"What is it, Lana?" she asked.

"Clark," she said, sounding heartbroken, confused and angry.

"Lana," Buffy said, "look at me." She looked sternly into Lana's swollen eyes, and said, "We think he's been hypnotized. I don't know what he did, but it probably wasn't his fault. Connor's going to deal with it."

Trying his best to look regal, or at least warrior-like, Connor drew himself up as tall as he could, the light from the barn door flooding around his slender form. "Wish me luck, ladies," he said in a mock-deep voice.

"Good luck," Buffy said, her eyes wide and mockingly serious.

As Connor disappeared into the barn, Buffy turned back to Lana, and resigned herself to girlfriend-comforting duty.

Q

Connor wasn't surprised to see Clark and the girl from the photo making out on the couch. If he had the power to make anyone do whatever he wanted, he'd definitely use it to get chicks. He was disappointed, though, that he hadn't been able to intercept the girl before this happened. His vision had been so vague that he hadn't known where to start.

As he ascended the last of the stairs to the loft, Clark looked up from the blonde girl. His eyes were dark with obvious need for the girl beneath him on the couch and painfully indifferent for the sobbing girl outside his barn.

"This isn't really a good time, Connor," Clark said.

"No," Connor agreed, "it's a great time."

He reached for Clark and threw him aside, not turning to watch as the larger boy crashed into the wall of his barn. He grabbed the blonde girl by the shoulders and drew her upright, looking into her eyes, daring her to try to snag him in her web.

Both their hands flew to the necklace.

"Let go of me," she said, her voice low and seductive.

"No," Connor said, a smirk crossing his face.

"Let go of Simone," a deeper voice said. Connor turned around; Clark was standing over him. Connor felt himself lifted up, and he fought—his elbow hitting what felt like a solid wall of concrete—before he was thrown.

He hit the wall at a tremendous speed, and crashed through the brittle wood of the barn. He fell for what felt like forever. When he hit the ground, he let himself lie there for a moment. He wasn't serious hurt, but there was _no_ way that Clarkie-boy was human. He wished that someone would have warned him.

He started to run back around to the front of the barn. Buffy sat there with Lana, looking bored.

"You could have given me the heads up about your little farm-boy friend in there," Connor started.

"Yeah, sorry," Buffy said, looking panicked. "I should have warned you that his bare chest might have been a distraction." Her eyes wide, they begged him not to elaborate. With a glance at Lana, Connor shrugged and rushed back into the barn.

He was a little shocked, this time, to discover that they were making out again. _This girl just doesn't give up_, he thought, mentally giving her points for persistence.

"I thought I told you to leave us alone," Clark said, his voice nearly a growl.

"No, actually, you didn't," Connor pointed out. "Though throwing me through the wall could have been taken as a hint."

"So why didn't you?" Clark asked, getting to his feet. Now that Connor knew how alarmingly strong the guy was, his broad shoulders were a bit intimidating.

"I'm more of a spell-it-out-for-me kinda guy," Connor replied.

Clark started to reach for him, undoubtedly to punch a new Connor-shaped hole in his barn wall, but Connor managed to squirm just out of his grasp. Connor kicked out, catching the guy in the chin, and winced when contact was made. Though it had, from the grimace on Clark's face, caused some damage, he wasn't sure that it hadn't hurt his foot a great deal more.

He glanced over at Simone; she was sitting up on the couch, watching the two of them with interest. She didn't seem surprised at Clark's demeanor or apparent invulnerability.

The gem of her necklace lay dormant on her chest.

Connor jumped into the air and kicked out, catching Clark in the face again. Without waiting, he leapt forward again, but this time, in a motion too quick to see, Clark ducked and caught the foot. Connor pushed off the ground with his free foot, reacting on instinct, and spinning his torso, hitting Clark's neck with his free foot and managing to secure the freedom of his other one.

He landed awkwardly on one knee. Pushing off from the ground, he righted himself facing away from Clark and, with a fleeting look at the high ceilings of the loft, rocketed up from the ground. Putting as much power as he could into the jump, he felt his spine arching over Clark's head, and saw Simone's face come into view, upside down, on the other side.

His arms outstretched, he landed on his hands and pushed again, completing the movement so that he flew over Simone and the couch, too.

He landed, crouched, behind the girl and reached around her. He grabbed the necklace, ripping it from her neck and, without hesitating, smashed it to the ground.

The blue stone shattered; with a hissing noise, air charged towards it, momentarily upsetting his hair. A moment later, it was silent, barren, and broken, the pieces lying benign on the floor around his hand.

Slowly, he lifted his hand and looked, curiously, at the red center of the gem. As he stared at it, he realized that it was getting larger, and with a sudden jolt, he felt as though he fell into the red molten core.

He knew, though, that it wasn't real. None of this was—but it would be.

A group of vampires, their faces dark and grotesque, huddled around a red, glowing fire. The fire danced and twitched like a normal fire, but the red was too deep, too unnatural to be anything but evil.

They chanted, and around them were five naked women, their throats viciously slit, the blood flowing towards the fire.

He felt as though he fell backward now, zooming out, so that the picture was smaller, less clear. He could see that they were surrounded by large explosives, and shining, green rocks.

"On the darkest night—the night in which even the dismal reflection of the sun refuses to shine in the sky—we will rise," a thin, rasping voice chanted.

"On the darkest night," a different voice repeated, "the blood of virgins will harden and pave the way for a new age."

"On the darkest night," a third voice said, "the blood will lead us."

Many voices chimed in now, repeating the last line, muttering it as though transfixed—"The blood," they said in discord, "the blood will lead us."

"The blood will tear deep into the fabric of our dimension," a loud, strong voice yelled. "And create for us an unholy opening that will be our very own," he paused here, and the other vampires pushed closer, their excitement and enthusiasm apparent.

"It will be our very own," he said, lowering his voice. "Our very own mouth to Hell."

Q

Please review! (puppy dog eyes)


	9. Chapter 9

_Smallville_ and all of its related elements are copyright © 2001 - 2007 Tollin-Robbins Productions, WB Television and DC Comics. Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all of its related elements belong to people other than me as well!

So... it's been a while! Anyhow, with the completion of _Antipathy_, I thought I could finish up some of my loose ends. Here goes! I was only planning on ten chapters, but I'm well into the eleventh chapter and the plan makes it look like there will be twelve or maybe thirteen. Anyone willing to beta should pm me!

Chapter Nine

"I found it," Oliver called. He knew that Angel was somewhere in the basement of his large home, probably in a dark corner brooding over his wonderful luck. It had been explained to him that Angel deserved nothing short of torture for the rest of eternity for his crimes, and, perhaps being rescued by a rather attractive, rich bachelor, and living a charmed life in Star City was not his idea of torture.

"I found something," Oliver called again. When there was no answer, he turned around and faced the stairwell. Through the banister, he could see Angel sitting, the light from the foyer reflecting in his dark eyes.

Oliver reached across his desk and grabbed one of his newest bows. He'd had it made especially for precision shooting. He closed his left eye and aimed carefully through the space in the banister posts.

A millisecond later he heard a _ping_ and then a yelp.

"Angel!" he yelled. "Your scull is made of metal!"

The vampire stood up slowly and made his way up the stairs. A trickle of blood ran down his face from a cut on his forehead.

"But my skin isn't," he pointed out, scowling at his host.

"I found it," Oliver said.

"You mentioned."

"It's, like, fifty tons of explosives," Oliver explained. "The delivery of them coincides with the disappearance of five girls from the nearby town, Smallville. We should check it out."

Angel rubbed the blood off of his face and looked curiously at the smear on his hand, as though contemplating if he should lick it off. With a disgusted look, he rubbed it on his pants.

"Not until the new moon," Angel said softly. He knew that it would be polite to explain his reasoning, to tell Oliver that the ritual would take place only when the moon didn't shine in the sky, and that the vampires would be protected by the strange meteor rocks. Rumours of the rocks had reached him before he'd been captured, and it was told that they had the same effect as the Gem of Amara. He couldn't risk fighting dozens of unkillable vampires with only a leather-clad human as backup.

A hand crept to his breast bone. He could tell, from the touch alone, that the metal below his skin was strong. It was a scary thought, he reasoned, that perhaps he was also invulnerable, even without the stones. He had often contemplated the repercussions of losing his soul at this point.

He had confided in Oliver on the flight back to Star City. Oliver had assured him, perhaps not fully realizing the intensity of the situation they could be facing, that he would deal with it.

Now, though, they had a battle to prepare for.

Q

"You're serious, aren't you?" Buffy asked. She glared at Connor, as though daring him to agree with her.

"If the Powers That Be sent me the vision," Connor said slowly, as though explaining it to an infant, "then it's true."

Buffy swore, and turned away from him. She stared at the wall for a moment before lashing out, pounding the wall. The wall caved around her small fist and she quickly withdrew it. She regarded the crumpled plaster for a moment before turning back to Connor.

"They're opening a Hellmouth," she said.

"Not exactly," Connor replied. "You have to first create the Hellmouth. I did some research on it, looking through the books you have lying around the house, and, from what I can tell, opening the Hellmouth is an entirely different ritual. It's like… you have to sew the zipper into the shirt before you can open and close it."

"That doesn't make any sense," Buffy said.

The door crashed open, and they both spun towards it, fists raised.

"Whoa," Chloe said, holding her hands up. "I surrender."

"Willow's at the hospital," Buffy said.

"Thanks," Chloe replied. She started out the door again, before pausing. "Clark broke up with Lana," she said, looking over her shoulder. "It will be a tender subject for a while, so just don't mention the L word around him."

Buffy gaped.

"The dream team split?" Connor asked.

"It would appear so," Chloe said. She was watching Buffy's reaction. "You like him, don't you?" she asked.

Buffy shook her head. "No, he's a baby," she said. "I date guys who have bicentennials. Not… babies. You like him," she accused.

"Maybe," Chloe replied. "But I'm at the getting-over-it stage of liking him. You're still in the denial stage. Don't," she said suddenly, loudly, "don't try it. It would hurt Lana too much."

Buffy looked offended. "I wasn't going to, Chloe. I have an apocalypse to deal with right now; I don't get to date. Normal girls get to date. I have to think about human sacrifices and die-free vamps and beheading. Not dating."

With a last, meaningful look, Chloe closed the door.

"When's the new moon?" Connor asked, turning back to Buffy.

"What happened to the old one?" Buffy asked. Connor sighed and strode into the kitchen. He grabbed a calendar and flipped it open.

"We have five days, Buffy," he said. "Five days to figure out where the vampires are hiding, and to save those girls from being killed.

Buffy moved into the living room, where a few Slayers trained idly. She sat down at the table and reached for the newspaper. She wasn't sure exactly what she was expecting to see, but what she saw was what she had feared.

"It's already too late," she whispered.

The front page was plastered with five pictures, the girls young and innocent, with missing teeth and braided hair, with freckled noses and squinty, smiling eyes.

None of them were over the age of twelve.

Q

The next four days were spent preparing. The Slayers trained in physical battle, because they, much like Buffy, hated sitting for hours in front of books. For the most part, they were useless when it came to researching for the upcoming battle.

There was so much that they didn't know. Willow and Chloe were both experts at research, and they slaved in front of their computers. It was Chloe who found their lead—tons of explosives were being delivered, over the black market, to a warehouse in the industrial district of Smallville.

Chloe, however, had only joined them three days into the research, having spent the time before that comforting a distraught and seriously drugged post-break-up Lana.

Clark dropped by at the same time that Chloe did, and helped with the research until Lana showed up, unannounced. He disappeared faster than anyone in the room could see, and Chloe left Willow to further research her break through, and went for a walk with Lana.

Buffy snatched the address from Willow's hand, thanked her profusely, and made a run for it, planning on scoping out the warehouse before the big night.

She stopped by Clark's barn.

He was standing near the window, where, she was sure, he could see Chloe and Lana talking in the cemetery.

"What are they talking about?" she asked shyly. They'd been awkward around each other for the past few days, as though there was something that needed to be talked about, but neither was quite willing to bring it up.

"I wasn't listening," Clark lied.

"Sure," Buffy said. "Listen, I know this is a rough time for you. Love is sacrifice, a lot of the time." She sat down on the couch, curling up at one end. Clark sat down on the other side of the couch.

"The rescue mission," Buffy said softly, "the failed one. The one for Angel." She didn't say anything for a while, and contemplated the corner of the coffee table for almost a full minute.

"He was the love of my life," she said with a wistful smile. She turned to Clark, and saw that the corners of his mouth twitched slightly, as though wanting to reciprocate her smile; as though wanting to appreciate her reverie.

"What happened?" Clark asked.

"He's a vampire," she said, nodding to herself. "He was cursed by a gypsy, like a hundred years ago, and he got his soul back, so he's just like you and me, now, with morals and lots and lots of guilt. But," she paused. "The trick is, that if he ever experiences a moment of true happiness, then his soul gets sucked out of him again. It's like… the soul vacuum's 'on' button is a happy thought. It's his punishment, right? He has to be unhappy all the time to pay for his sins."

She looked at Clark, gazing into his dark eyes, and wondered if he could understand.

"I love him," she whispered. "I love him so much, Clark. But, us being together… it cost so many people too much. Not being with him hurts me more than anything I could ever imagine.

"You sacrificed your happiness for her, Clark," she continued. "It was the right thing to do."

They stared at each other a long time.

"I don't know if you're right," Clark finally said. "I don't know if _right_ should hurt this much."

"Usually," Buffy said, "_right_ hurts more than anything." She reached into her pocket and pulled out the paper with Chloe's handwriting on it. She handed it to him.

"I need you for this one," she said.

Clark stood up, reading the address and trying to remember if he knew where the street was. He gestured, silently, for them to descend from the loft.

"Clark," Buffy said softly, as they reached his truck, "I killed him."

He stopped fumbling for his keys and looked up.

"When he lost his soul," Buffy explained, "I put a sword through him, and I sent him to Hell. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do."

"But," Clark said slowly, "it was right?"

Buffy smiled sadly. She nodded and brushed the hair out of her face.

"It was right."

Q

Though the sun had not quite passed under the horizon, the looming presence of the warehouse made it seem all that much darker out.

"We're just doing some recon," Buffy explained. "Connor's gathering the girls and he's going to meet us here at sundown."

The reached the large, steel door of the warehouse. Buffy pulled at the door for a moment, before stepping back and looking expectantly at Clark.

"It's locked," she pointed out.

Clark glared at the door and Buffy jumped back slightly when his eyes flashed red and what appeared to be bright red lasers shot out of his eyes. He fried each hinge and then the lock system, before wrapping his fingers into the metal and pulling the door away from the door frame.

"It gets me every time," Buffy said. "Heat vision!" she gushed, gesturing to her own eyes.

Clark rolled his eyes at her and walked through the doorway.

As Clark moved on ahead of Buffy, his large outline blending softly into the darkness, Buffy took a moment to appreciate his bum and wonder exactly what this breakup meant for her.

They had shared a kiss once before. It had been… not perfect, not mind numbing or world spinning, and it certainly hadn't been the kind of kiss that a girl falls in love with a boy over. But it had still been… well, awesome.

She was interested. Despite his innocence and youth, or perhaps because of it, she was interested. She had never allowed herself to love someone who was so completely new. Angel had lived, loved, and murdered long before she was born. Riley had loved his job; he got to slaughter those inferior races while posing as a graduate student during the day. Spike had been the worst; his lack of soul and senseless devotion to Buffy had created a monster where a Slayer had been.

Buffy wasn't innocent or pure. She didn't want to impose her dirtiness, her cynicism on him.

They treaded silently. It was still daylight, so they hardly expected that the vamps would be waiting near the still sunlit doorway, but vampires didn't need much sleep. They were probably still awake in the bowels of this warehouse, plotting. They were likely poking fun at their young prisoners, making sure the girls knew that they were going to die.

Vampires love to play with their food.

Clark paused at the first door, and Buffy allowed herself to slip by him, pressing on, to the darkness of the hallway ahead.

"If you feel the meteor rocks," Buffy said softly, "you let me know. Don't do anything stupid."

Clark didn't answer, but she knew he'd heard her.

"Buffy," he said. "I hear something."

She stopped and focused her hearing. She closed her eyes for a moment and let her energy flow into her other senses, and then she heard it too. It was more than just that—she could sense a vampire.

They turned a corner and opened a door, and Spike was there, lying on the floor, a barren castle surrounded in a moat of blood. He had sputtered when he saw them, silhouetted against the cold mechanical light of the hallway, and told Buffy, again and again, that he hadn't given away her secrets, that she was safe.

And Buffy began to realize that she didn't have to be an imposing negative wind, and that sometimes, she warmed the people she met. Because Spike was a better man for having known her; and Angel had smiled more often when she was around.

She watched Clark as he picked Spike up off the floor, and then checked outside to see if the sun was down. It wasn't quite.

"Spike," she said. "We need to get you out of here."

"There's not enough time, love," he said. "It's already started."

Her eyes widened, because she'd been sure, so sure, that they'd need to wait until the sun was all the way down. Backup wasn't here yet, it was just her and this weakened vampire and inexperienced boy. Despite herself, she chewed on her lip. She was scared.

"We need more warriors," she said softly. She knew that Clark could still hear her, but she leaned closer and whispered anyway. "We need you."

"Can barely stand, love," he pointed out. Without hesitating, she held out her arm.

"When you're close to them, with the stones, you can't die," she said. "You'll be our best chance."

And Clark watched this exchange. She was offering herself, like some proverbial sheep, to him. "How much time do we have?" he asked, his voice, though still only a mutter, sounding loud and intrusive.

"Five minutes," Spike said. "About five before they start."

Clark moved forward, and before Buffy could stop him, was holding a small lead case in his hand.

"I can't believe you still carry this around with you," he said. Buffy shrugged.

"Before, you were some murderous demon, and then you were some cute school boy," she explained. "Then, all of a sudden, you were molesting me in the foyer of my home. I'm not taking any chances."

Clark blushed, and Buffy couldn't help but feel proud at having drawn such a pretty flush from the boy. Then, reality rushed back to her and she remembered the kidnapped girls and the weak and useless vampire on her arm. He wanted to bite her, and she could remember, when Angel had done it, how much it had hurt.

But allowing a Hellmouth to be created… Spike would have the same advantage of their adversaries. She could fight weakened. He could barely stand.

And why the hell was Clark going through her clothes, anyway?

The green rock was in his hand, and suddenly, blood was pouring down his arm. Buffy didn't have time to react, but Spike, starved for blood and ravenous, dove for the boy.

Spike had felt the boy's power before; he had tried to drink from this boy that night in the alley, and even the brief moment when his lips had been against that skin, and the blood had pulsed so close to him, he had felt orgasmic. The boy's wrist, now, against his mouth, and the blood, flowing, pulsing, burning with that sun-sweet pain and the pleasure of warm blood down his throat…

His strength bubbled within him and he was pressing the boy against the wall and the green rock wasn't in his hand, it was in Spike's and it was pushing in on top of the boy's neck; he barely registered the wrist, healing so perfectly because the neck artery was throbbing so purely and the proximity drove all conscience and reason from his mind.

Spike cut him again.

Hands gripped his shoulders. He was pulled away and he gasped, reached, before being tossed against the opposite wall of the room.

Buffy was staring, her eyes wide.

But not at him, in disgust and shame; she stared at Clark. Slowly, she approached him. He looked shocked, but her hand reached out and gripped his wrist softly. With the other hand she touched his neck. The wound had already healed.

Spike watched as the boy melted against her touch, as though her hand soothed the internal distress the same way that his skin had so easily stitched itself together. He watched their eyes meet. Despite the revitalizing blood within him, he felt lost.

Buffy didn't turn to look at him, but he knew she spoke for his benefit.

"Let's go."


	10. Chapter 10

Smallville and all of its related elements are copyright © 2001 - 2007 Tollin-Robbins Productions, WB Television and DC Comics

_Smallville_ and all of its related elements are copyright © 2001 - 2007 Tollin-Robbins Productions, WB Television and DC Comics. Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all of its related elements belong to people other than me as well!

Chapter Ten

Willow waits at home, the phone glaring up at her. Buffy had gone for some re-con at the warehouse, and was supposed to ring on her cell phone when she was ready for back-up. Conner sat impatiently next to her, tapping his fingers on the computer table and using her tap top screen as a high-hat.

When his tapping reached an all time irritating high, she reached out and stilled his hand.

"You're going to bust my screen," she explained.

Conner reached for the phone and dialed Buffy's number.

"Conner," Willow exclaimed, reaching to take the phone from him. "You know Buffy always forgets to put it on silent! What if they're hiding?"

The phone's tinny ring tone sounded from the kitchen.

"Good point," Connor said. "Except that she also forgot to bring it with her."

"We're going," Willow said. "Get the girls ready."

Chloe opened the door. "How is the home front?" she asked. Lana followed in her wake.

"Annoyed."

Willow stalked up the stairs, yelling for Slayers to congregate. Then, the phone rang.

Willow ran to pick it up, because, though it couldn't be Buffy, she had been waiting _all evening_ for a phone call.

"Yeah," she said.

She listened. Then, all the blood rushed from her face. "Yeah," she repeated. "I'll be there in ten."

She hung up.

The Slayers had assembled in the living room.

"The hospital," she explained. "It's Xander."

She grabbed her keys and slammed the door on the way out.

Q

They head underground.

Spike leads the way to a room packed with crate after crate of what must be explosives. In the middle, a pentagram; at each point, two figures: a robe clad man and a child.

Their heads snap up in unison.

"Oh God," Buffy whispers, and, without hesitation, she jumps forward. Spike is moving just as fast as her, the two of them pushing off crates and striding towards the vampires and their victims and the math, in their head, is too poisonous not to make their situation hopeless. Three of them, moving across the room, and all these vamps had to do was flinch.

They don't notice that Clark hasn't kept up. They focus on the girls, not their comrades; Clark within five feet of the closest monster when he drops.

And the vampires make their moves. Spike dives for the closest girl and Buffy for the one to the right, but knives flash and stakes were futile against these beasts.

An arrow, from a cross-bow, flies across the room. The Green Arrow, with Angel by his side, had come in through a window.

Buffy slams into the vampire with tremendous force, and pulls her stake free as though it had sunk into putty. She erases the picture of the girls from her mind and focuses on the vampire in front of her. She can't think about Angel, suddenly alive and freed, fighting one of the vampires across the room, or of a strange, leather clad human with a cross-bow. She can't remember that Clark is weakened by these rocks or that he could die and she could lose another person she was starting to care for.

Now, all that mattered was the fight.

Spike looks up from where he crouched. The girl he had gone for had been closer than the others by a long shot, and though the vampire had been quick, Spike had been quicker. Fortified by the boy's blood and the proximity of the rocks, he had moved like a gazelle. Though he felt slightly sickened, either from the starvation or from the strange, strengthening blood within him, he had saved the girl.

But a vampire loomed above him, and Angel was suddenly on scene, tossing the guy across the room as though he were a bean bag.

"Thanks, mate," he says.

"Don't mention it," Angel replies, oddly good natured, considered the company. He was usually so annoyed to have to save Spike's life.

Spike moves with the girl, towards where Clark appears to be injured. A second later, though, Clark is standing up again and Spike is desperate to fight these abominations who kept him chained and tortured him for days. He hands the girl off to him, and Clark takes her gently into his arms.

Clark looks across the room. Oliver was there, suddenly, shockingly, and with him another man, him and Buffy fighting with practiced ease. Oliver has his toys and Spike moves like an animal and there are five monsters and four dead girls and Kryptonite leaving a palpable thickness in the air and this child is so scared and Clark doesn't want to be useless again.

So he runs, out the door where they came, moving faster than a human could see, until he makes it to the car and it's then that he realizes that another car comes up the long drive.

"You're going to be okay," he says to her. And then time slows down to its normal pace and he can finally take in how terrified this girl is and how tired and hungry she must be.

He shrugs his jacket off and puts it around her thin shoulders.

"The other girls?" she asks.

"I'm sorry," Clark replies, and she sobs into the jacket.

"I'm going to go back in to the warehouse," he says. "A car is coming, though. Some of my friends are in it, and they'll get you some help, okay?"

She nods, and Clark glances again at the car, the headlights sharp against the darkening sky, Chloe's car and Lana riding shotgun. He disappears before they can see him.

Q

Buffy only just barely registers Clark returning to the scene. She'd yelled, only moments earlier that they had to destroy the rocks, and she thought they'd gotten it all. But the vampire she was fighting, just now, when Clark's entrance distracted her, he still had his, and he was running.

He was throwing his rock into the air, pulling off the chain on his neck, and Buffy eyes widened as she saw him run towards the sliver of light from the sunset coming through the broken window.

_He's going to kill himself_, was Buffy's last, confused thought, before the vamp caught fire.

Right over a case of dynamite—

In a room full of explosives—

Buffy screamed a warning and turned, but the thought of running not even fully formed before—

Clark saw the explosion ripple outward, and he moved towards Buffy, planning to shield her from the blast as he'd done so many times.

His head snaps to the side as the meteor rock the vampire threw flies past his head. It slows him imperceptibly, but the first blast is too far gone and there is metal, shrapnel, flying all around him, bouncing off him and the Kryptonite is long gone and his mind clears just soon enough for him to see Buffy, mid turn, and some pole and a jagged sheet of metal are flying towards her.

The world around him, the other fighters in the room, they blur into nothing as he runs towards her. His hand catches around the pole and the sheet flies off his back, slicing into his shirt, and he thinks—_Thank God_.

The second explosion knocks him forward a little, and he moves to wrap himself around Buffy, so that she doesn't get burnt and then he realizes that his hand won't move.

It's not that his hand can't move, but he squeezes his eyes shut for a moment so that he can try to comprehend why it just _will not move_.

He looks down.

"Buffy?" he asks.

"It doesn't hurt," she says, and she's not looking at her chest, she's looking up at him. He slowly, doesn't—_doesn't_—move his hand, still wrapped firmly around that pole, turns her, so that his arm wraps all the way around her body. He picks her up, his arm supporting her back and his other arm under her legs.

He thinks that probably, there was another explosion. He wonders briefly about the other guys, Buffy's vampire friend and Oliver and his friend.

"I'm going to be okay," she tells him.

He thinks that he should be saying that to her.

"But, smart guy," she says, and she's gasping like someone's standing on her chest, "a. Hospital. Would. Be. Nice."

So he runs.

Q

Chloe gets out of the car and runs to Clark's truck. She thought she'd seen a girl sitting in it, but she hadn't been sure, not until she rapped on the window and saw her face pressed against the glass.

The girl opened the door and Chloe listened to her slightly hysterical and very confused account of what had transpired over the past few days.

Lana though, she was running. Towards the warehouse, towards Clark, she didn't know; she wasn't supposed to love him any more, she wasn't supposed to care.

"Clark!" Lana called. She saw him materialize, as though her calling had brought him forth, at the door of the warehouse. He was looking into the sky and he was carrying someone—it looked like Buffy—and Lana screamed as a huge explosion sent shrapnel flying in all directions. Some landed mere feet from where Lana was standing, but she couldn't find the strength in her to move. Clark was too close to the warehouse still, and she suspected that the next explosion would be larger.

As Clark got closer to her, Lana could see that Buffy was covered in blood. There was a jagged piece of _something_ protruding from her chest, but Lana wasn't able to get a closer look because at that moment another, exponentially larger, explosion occurred. Lana was thrown backward from the blast and when she was able to push herself into a sitting position she saw that the fire had completely engulfed Clark and Buffy.

The smoke began to clear and Lana saw Clark hunched over, with Buffy folded beneath him. His clothes were on fire, but somehow, miraculously, he pushed himself up. Another explosion sounded from behind him, and Lana saw a huge piece of shrapnel flying towards her. There was no time for her to move, and the metal screeched as it spun toward her—

Chloe had come up just behind Lana, and had watched when the explosion had knocked her off her feet. As Lana had fallen backward, Chloe had seen the metal flying toward her, and Lana had thrown her hands over her face and closed her eyes, but Chloe, from a bit further away, had stared as Clark disappeared from where he had been crouched seconds earlier and reappeared, looming over Lana, and the metal had struck his back and bent around him from the momentum it carried. With one arm he held Buffy, bloodied and pale.

For nearly a second, Chloe and Clark met eyes, and Chloe could tell that he had checked them over, looking for injuries, before he turned back to Buffy. There was a terrified look in his eyes, one that Chloe had never seen before. In that moment though, before Clark disappeared again, she saw why.

There was a pole, several centimeters thick, thrust through Buffy's sternum. Clark's hand, blackened from the explosion, was wrapped around the pole near the base, holding it steady. Chloe nodded slightly, giving him permission to leave them. The explosions had ceased. Lana wasn't hurt. They didn't need him anymore—but Buffy did.

Clark looked up and then into the distance, and Chloe knew that her human eyes would never be able to trace his movement. She was about to rush forward, to Lana, when a wave of air knocked her backward. Now propped on her elbows, she had a view of the pale blue sky above them, and she watched as Clark faded into the distance.

As Chloe picked Lana up from the ground, and started the too-familiar game of making excuses for the inexplicable, she had one thought echoing through her mind. It was an effort not to say it aloud every time Lana asks her a question, demanded an explanation.

Clark could fly.

Q

Willow pulled the car to the side of the road.

Her hands shook. She squeezed her eyes shut and placed her hands softly over her face. She needed to cry; she needed to be strong for Xander, so that meant that now, she needed to cry.

Her sobs came in long, tight breaths; an asthma attack, an episode of panic, she cried without tears for so many minutes. She thought about Xander, how he used to steal her Barbies and how he secretly cried when her goldfish died, and the fire truck and the yellow crayon. She thought of how he'd loved Buffy and Cordelia and finally her and how he came to her after his wedding disaster and how he'd been the only one there after she'd tried to destroy the world. He was her armor, through every battle.

All she wanted was to take away his pain. Throughout their lives they'd done so much for each other, they'd carried each other, she'd take the fall, he'd take the blame, they were always there to catch the other.

Buffy was the hurricane; they were the calm beneath.

Her foot started to tap against the gas pedal, tap-taping, tap-taping, and the sobs were gone. She tapped her foot, and then slowly took her hands from her face.

They had stopped trembling.

She closed her eyes and let her other senses guide her. The air was trembling with power, the ground vibrating with those stones, all those stones, so thick with power and ripe with rage.

She threw open the door of the car and started to run.


End file.
